Training & Support | Early Careers

We want you to have the best possible start to your career and are dedicated to supporting you before and during your training contract.

Before you join

With our training provider BPP, we provide comprehensive support to prepare you for legal practice before you begin your two-year training contract.

If you hold a non-law degree, or did not study the law of England and Wales, you will complete a nine-month law conversion course (PGDL) followed by the one-year LLM SQE1&2 course. If you already have a relevant law degree, you’ll move straight onto the LLM SQE1&2 course.

As part of the LLM SQE1&2 course, all our trainees complete the Essentials for Practice course which covers knowledge areas specific to our firm:

commercial dispute resolution;
debt finance;
international trade; and
private acquisitions.

We're a mid-sized firm. You get a lot of access to senior leadership, partners and senior associates who are really supportive and will help you develop your career.

Associate, London

The SQE Pathway

Support

We offer both financial and pastoral support while you undertake your BPP courses.

Depending on your location and the length of study, we offer a maintenance grant of up to £10,000 for the PGDL course and up to £12,500 for the LLM SQE1&2.

In addition, we’ve designed a special ‘Keep in Touch’ programme for our future trainees that helps you get to know us, meet new people and develop your professional skills.

As you prepare to start your training contract, we’ll put you in touch with a dedicated buddy (one of our existing trainees) who can tell you everything you need to know about life at our firm.

We love to bring together our future trainees and we’ll offer you plenty of opportunities to meet others in your intake and those in preceding and succeeding intakes.

You can also get involved in our diversity and inclusion and sustainability initiatives, as well as skills sessions to help you thrive professionally, build relationships and make the most of being part of the firm. For example, we invite future trainees to take part in charity fund-raising events such as the London Legal Walk and D&I initiatives such as our International Women’s Day celebrations.

The team around you are invested in getting to know you as a person as well as see you grow professionally.

Trainee, London

When you join

Your two-year training contract begins with a full induction. You will also take part in a longer-term trainee skills development programme. It focusses on what’s relevant to your day-to-day role as a trainee solicitor and will include developing your skills in networking, business development and managing your workload.

Your practice group will also give you specific training as you begin each of your six seats.

We are committed to ensuring that our working environment is fully inclusive and as barrier-free as possible. Once you join us, if you would like to discuss any workplace adjustments, the Early Careers team will be happy to help.

Throughout the training contract we will provide you with regular performance reflection meetings. You’ll receive feedback from a dedicated supervisor and our Early Careers team will support you throughout. In turn, we encourage you to take ownership of your development and growth and to ask for feedback wherever possible.

Beyond training

As well as offering roles in our London office, we allow for you to qualify and work in our international offices. Our scope for career development means that most of our trainees do choose to stay. In 2022 and 2023, for example, we retained 78% of our trainees.

When you qualify, we’ll invite you to join our induction for newly qualified solicitors, run by our Learning and Development team. Through this and our Associate Skills programme (see diagram below), you’ll be able to make a smooth transition to become a qualified associate with us – whether in London or internationally.