Travers Smith - Playbook (TC 2028)

Do you want a TC at Travers Smith?

Here’s the research you need to impress!

This Playbook covers:

⚖️ Travers push for Arbitration
👔 A huge change in Employment work
🏦 A secret private capital move
🇪🇺 The Brussels bet
⚠️ Key challenges and opportunities

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

⏰ Deadline: 16 October (Winter TC)

Travers wants to grow its Arbitration Practice

What’s going on?

In September 2026, Travers announced the hire of Andy Moody, Baker McKenzie’s global chair of international arbitration and London disputes head (and it's a big deal).

His experience spans commercial arbitration and investor claims against states, with particular strengths in energy, infrastructure, post-acquisition disputes and joint ventures.

💡 Arbitration is a process in which appointed decision-makers resolve a dispute outside the ordinary courts.

What’s the signal?

Most people will see this and think: “So Travers wants more disputes work.” True, but there’s a much better point you can make.

Moody specialises in post-acquisition and joint venture disputes. Those fights only exist because a deal happened first: a buyer discovers hidden liabilities, partners clash over control, or payments tied to future performance never arrive.

• 🤝 Travers is built on deals, so many of tomorrow’s disputes start in work it already does today. Moody lets Travers stay with a deal for its whole life, not just until signing.
• 🔋 His energy and infrastructure experience provides value over a longer timeline. These projects can bind investors together for decades while politics, regulation and economics shift around them.
• ⚖️ A dispute is often a test of decisions made at the drafting stage. Exit rights, payment mechanics and dispute resolution clauses all get tested years later. With Moody in-house, Travers can feed what it learns from those fights back into how it drafts deals.

So disputes at Travers can win big standalone mandates and make the deal work stronger at the same time.

How to use this in your application