Clifford Chance - Playbook (Training Contract 2029)

Thousands of people apply for a TC at Clifford Chance?

Here’s the research you need to impress!

This Playbook covers:

🏟️ Sports is a new focus area
💼 Why CC is bringing finance talent back
🏗️ The £2.45 billion behind the data centre boom
⚖️ Why the firm is hiring former regulators
🤖 AI turns greenwashing rules into legal work

Plus, how to use these insights to stand out in your TC application and interview!

⏰ Deadline: 18 November

Growing the Sports Practice

Clifford Chance is focused on growing its sports practice.

Yesterday, the firm announced that Charles Baker had joined from Sidley. He becomes co-chair of its global entertainment and sports team, alongside Luis Alonso in Spain and Christopher Yates in London.

Baker is a private equity lawyer who has worked on the sales of the San Diego Padres (baseball), the Washington Commanders (American football) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (basketball) - pretty BIG deals...

Baker isn't the only new addition. At the start of October, Jill Kelley joined in New York from Hogan Lovells Cadwalader. Kelley spent more than five years as General Counsel and Vice President of Legal Affairs at the New York Jets.

• Top Tip: Look at where Baker sits in the firm. He has joined the private equity practice, not a standalone sports group, and he is the firm’s 11th private capital partner hire of 2026. That tells you how Clifford Chance sees sport: as an asset class that investors put money into.

🤔 Why does this matter?

1. Sport is now an investment market
Sports teams used to be bought mostly by wealthy individuals. Today private equity funds, credit funds and even athletes are buying in. In 2024, for example, the NFL voted to let approved funds own up to 10% of a team. A team offers loyal fans, broadcasting income and sponsorship, but the investor needs to know what it can actually do once it owns a stake. How much say will it have over major decisions? An attractive sporting name can hide a weak investment case: a key sponsorship might expire just when income is meant to grow, or a minority stake might carry too few rights to change course.

2. The two hires cover the whole life of an investment
Baker brings experience of buying and selling stakes. Kelley knows how a franchise earns money and makes decisions, because she has worked inside one. Together they let the firm advise before the deal (is this worth buying, and on what terms?) and after it (how does the team grow its revenue?). The second stage is what makes this commercially interesting for CC. A team may change hands only once a decade, but sponsorship renewals, media deals, naming rights and governance questions come up every year, which gives the client reasons to keep coming back between ownership deals.

3. The money is crossing borders
US sports are going global. The NFL has international games and the NBA plans for a European league as signs that sports deals are going global. Much of the capital is US money moving into European sport, and Clifford Chance has already acted on deals like Kroenke’s majority ownership of Arsenal and Velocity Sports Partners’ purchase of Espanyol.

⭐ How to use this in your application