our social contract
Every firm tells a story about itself, and the vocabulary is usually the same. Excellence. Culture. Talent. Values. The words are chosen so that nobody can disagree with them, which is also why nobody remembers them. Swap the letterhead and the sentence still works.
We would rather tell you what this place is actually like.
We started Ascendus in 2023 with a simple wager: that a small firm could do the work large firms do, and do it with more attention. Three years and more than a hundred and fifty transactions later, that wager has held. It has held because of how we work together, not because we said the right things about ourselves.
The work here is exacting. It asks for close reading, patience and steadiness. It asks you to stay with a matter long enough to see past its legal surface to its structure, its pressure points, and the places where the commercial logic and the drafting quietly disagree. Judgment is what clients pay us for, and judgment is not taught. It accumulates through repetition and through exposure to difficult work, and it accumulates faster when your work is visible.
At Ascendus your work is visible. We are deliberately small. Nobody sits behind a bench of twenty juniors, and no draft passes through six hands before it reaches a partner. What you write reaches the client, and it reaches the client with your name attached. That is the most valuable thing we can offer someone early in their career. It also asks something of you, and we would rather you knew that before you arrived than discovered it in month three.
We ask a great deal of our juniors. In return we give a great deal back, though not immediately and not sentimentally. What you get is proximity: to the partner, to the client, to the decision. You see how a deal is actually built rather than the fragment of it that lands in your inbox. You are told when your work needs to be better, promptly and specifically, and told when it is good. The returns here compound, and they compound for the people who stay long enough to collect them.
We will not pretend the hours are always gentle. Transactions run to other people's timetables, and some weeks will take a great deal out of you. Few will take everything out of you. What we will not do is confuse hours with commitment, manufacture urgency that does not exist, or treat exhaustion as a credential. If we take your evening, we will tell you why. We are building a firm people can spend a career in, and we cannot do that by burning people out and hiring more.
Respect and professional treatment are not aspirations here. They are conditions of working at this firm, and they hold at every level and at every hour. Our support staff, our interns, our associates, our partners and our clients all receive the same courtesy, and pressure on a matter never becomes a licence to treat anyone poorly. This applies as much to how our partners speak to a first-week intern as to how anyone speaks to a client. If you experience or witness anything that falls short of it, bring it to your supervisor or to any partner. We will take it seriously, we will act on it, and raising it will not cost you anything.
We also care about you as a person and not only as a lawyer. You are part of this firm from the day you walk in, and your growth is our responsibility as much as your own. That means honest conversations about where you stand rather than surprises at appraisal time, and time to talk about what you want your practice to become. It also means noticing when you are stretched too thin, and doing something about it. If something outside work needs your attention, tell us. We would rather adjust than lose you.
The rest is straightforward. Say what you think, and be wrong out loud rather than silent and safe. Tell us early when something will not land. Keep confidences absolutely. Read your own work as though you had to find the error in it. Ask when you are stuck, because asking is never held against you here.
Ascendus is a serious practice, built by people who wanted the work to matter more and the distance to the client to be shorter. It suits people who want responsibility early and are willing to be accountable for it. If that sounds like the way you want to learn this profession, we would like to hear from you.
This is our social contract.
________________________________________________________
guidance for internships and applications
If you want to join us, write to careers@ascenduslaw.com. One address covers internships, associate roles and speculative approaches, and a partner reads it.
Send us the following three things for an employment opportunity. For an internship, send us your CV. Feel free to add a covering note to bolster your chances.
-
Your CV (of no more than 2 pages). For us quality always trumps quantity. Put things on the CV you want us to know and notice, not random things that just adds volume.
-
A covering note of no more than one page. The covering note matters most to us. Rather than telling us you are hardworking and detail-oriented, tell us why this firm, what you want to work on and why, and something you have done that you found genuinely difficult. A note written for us specifically tells us more than any list of qualities.
-
A writing sample that you wrote yourself and that nobody has marked or edited for you.
For an internship, tell us the dates you are available and how long you can stay. We take interns for a minimum of four weeks, because anything shorter gives you too little to work on, and we prefer eight to twelve weeks so we can put real matters in front of you.
Please write to us even if you are not certain you fit the profile. We care more about how you think than about where you ranked.
If you do not follow the instructions above, your application will likely not be considered.