Freshfields - Playbook (Vacation Scheme 2027)

Do you want a TC at Freshfields?

Here's the research you need to impress!

This Playbook covers:

🇺🇸 Why the US is now Freshfields' centre of gravity
💰 Why Freshfields rewrote its partner pay
🇪🇺 How Europe is paying for the American bet
📈 What the 2026 partner promotions reveal
🤖 Freshfields' secret AI strategy
⚠️ Key challenges and opportunities

Plus how to use this information to stand out in interviews!

⏰ Deadline: 30 October

The US is Freshfields' focus

What's going on?

Freshfields has spent five years building in the US, and the pace is picking up:

• February 2025: Freshfields opened in Boston, hiring Latham & Watkins private capital M&A partner Matthew Goulding to lead the office.
• December 2025: The firm's accounts showed US revenue up 21%, from £391m to £473m. The US now brings in 21% of global revenue, up from 11% five years earlier.
• June 2026: Damien Zoubek, an M&A partner hired from Cravath in 2021, became US managing partner, succeeding Sarah Solum.
• September 2026: Freshfields hired Daniel Stein from Weil as co-head of global investigations and Bethany Pfalzgraf from Cravath into M&A.

What's the signal?

Freshfields is obsessed with growing in the US market.

Putting a lateral dealmaker from Cravath in charge of the American business tells you the London leadership has accepted that the US must be run the way US firms run. Plus Stein's hire matters because investigations and enforcement work keeps clients close through downturns, when deal flow dries up.

And there’s been a change in strategy too. Both September hires came while Weil was losing partners to Cravath, Paul Weiss and Simpson Thacher. Freshfields now behaves like a US firm, picking off talent when a competitor wobbles.

How to use this in your interview