Clearly, you haven't read that infamous interview in the law section of the London Times. The one in which a partner in the London office of an American firm said (on condition of anonymity) that the level of usefulness of newly qualified associates was (if I remember right) 'little more than bugger all', according to the partner, at least.

As someone else has written earlier, junior associates don't know enough to add value at the deal structuring stage (pre-term sheet and term sheet stage). But you may still be involved in researching some finer points if your senior or partner isn't sure about a specific issue affecting the structure.

I think the right way of going about this is to first identify where you can add value in the beginning of your career and to do that as well as you can. If you work with anyone half decent, then they will notice if you go above and beyond and involve you in more complex parts of a deal with time and explain why some decisions were taken.

So, when I was a first year associate, for example, I knew I could proof read a document and know the finer points of secretarial standards better than my partner. I could also just hammer out more hours than my partner since I was younger and hungrier (and didn't have much of a life beyond work) and, so anything which was "unnecessary" in the short term, I was willing to spend time on that more than my partner. There is some "unnecessary" tax research that I did in the first or second year which has held me in good stead even today.

I also used to hound my partner to explain why a deal was structured anything other than in the most straight forward way. In more than one case, I had taken permission from my partner and spoken to the tax consultants of the client to understand why they took one view instead of another (after researching the two potential views to begin with). I also used to ask my clients to share their IC memo and deal thesis to understand where they saw value - I understood the deal better and that also made the diligence exercise a lot more targeted to where the client saw value and / or risk. I also always went through the FDD since that gives a much closer understanding of the business of the target.

When I was younger (and thanks to my wonderful partner who let me run with these things), this just seemed like the right thing to do, but I don't see a lot of junior associates doing this probably because all of this take more time, and when you're just trying to survive, you think of the immediate but not the important. If I didn't feel like I learnt something new and interesting in each deal during the first few years of working, then I felt like I wasted my time working on that deal. The grind is only worth it if it make you a better lawyer each and every time. There is no glory in the grind by and of itself. So, I positioned myself for the parts of the diligence which could help me understand the deal better and I did my best to escape working on the more routine parts of a diligence (usually, corporate and license sections are the best sections in a diligence from this standpoint).

So, if you want to understand and be involved in structuring discussions, then you will need to

(a) first reach a point where you can see the immediate issues in a deal without really requiring to think about them; and

(b) then you will need to get a decent sense of income tax (there is genuinely very little income tax which is relevant for most M&A and PE/VC work) and ideally get your basics of accounting up to scratch - read CBSE XI and XII along with a FDD report of a simple business (ideally, with only one business line and something which isn't complex like financial services); and

(c) always understand from your client why they want to do the deal - surprisingly very few people ask this question to their client - you must not accept the outline of the deal in the term sheet as a fait accompli - always understand it and question it.

If you do the above for 4/5 years, you will be able to add value and think of innovative solutions to the structuring problems before you.

Not very often. Structuring presupposes a certain degree of knowledge and experience which first years don’t yet have. Given the complexity and the relevant facts, junior time is not most useful for these cases.

The juniors get involved after the term sheet stage. Having said that, hopefully if you have a senior patient enough, you can have them explain the concepts involved in structuring.

How much are junior associates (A0s and A1s) involved in deal structuring on a day-to-day basis? If not deal structuring, how much do they get involved in the bigger picture of the deals generally?

I apologize if my question is a bit vague, but I hope you can understand what I am trying to get to. Thanks in advance!