On 20 August 2019, it was reported that a 21-year-old man, Dale Kelly, had been acquitted of sexual assault against his friend’s girlfriend. Kelly, with a history of sleepwalking, successfully convinced the jury that he was not in control, nor was he aware, of his actions on account of his state of sleepwalking. As a […]
Earlier this week Extinction Rebellion parked a blue boat outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand and occupied the busy London street with a sit-down protest, causing traffic jams and commuter chaos. It came at the start of a week of protest events around the country. This is not the first time the […]
In a recent case the claimant, Gemma Brushett, was awarded damages of £4,161 plus costs for injuries suffered by her as a pedestrian in a collision with the defendant cyclist, Robert Hazeldean, despite the fact that at the time of the collision the claimant was not paying attention to the road but was apparently looking […]
“In a way, the Fyre founders are not much different than the rest of us — we all create images of ourselves on social media that don’t wholly reflect our reality” – Marc Weinstein
A series of recent cases illustrate the consequences of making exaggerated or untruthful claims for damages for personal injury, as Paul Magrath explains.
Many things have changed since the days when inquests where held in the basements of pubs with the body of the deceased laid out for examination by the all-male jury. Happily, women are now permitted to sit on juries, the deceased is usually safely in the ground long before the inquest starts and, perhaps less […]
I often get asked at open evenings and law fairs: how do you maintain a level of self-belief when applying for training contracts? Often guidance is freely available on how to improve your application and prepare for interviews, but how to cope with being rejected by your preferred firm is something that is often not […]
A few weeks ago, I was asked by a paralegal at my firm whether or not they should apply be applying for vacation schemes or if they should go straight to the training contract applications. To be frank, it stumped me, as it’s something I’d not given much thought to since qualifying. It brought to […]
When I first started making training contract applications I concentrated heavily on my ‘diverse’ background. I realise now I was wrong to do so.
How can you demonstrate your commitment to a firm without just repeating what’s on its website? One graduate recruiter shares some tips…
Here are 10 possible topics – some common, some not – that may come up for discussion in a training contract interview.
Let me tell you why I’ve written this, and why you might want to read it. For over 20 years, I worked in the same law firm. It became – no thanks to me – one of the most successful law firms in the world. When I was a partner there, I was asked to join the group […]
Housing developer A2Dominion has launched a training contract after receiving authorisation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The company obtained approval from the regulator in October 2018, after the proposal was unanimously approved by the executive management team. Trainees are selected from an in-house pool of paralegals. Once they join, they have the opportunity to […]
Reed Smith is to allow two trainees to complete an ‘innovation seat’. The new seats are each associated with a particular practice group, which identified projects in advance for the trainee to work on. There may also be other cross-departmental projects which both trainees will work on. The selected trainees had expressed an interest in […]
Linklaters has got rid of its vacation scheme and training contract application form and has replaced it with an online test, in an attempt to make its recruitment process more accessible. The magic circle firm consulted students and found the traditional application form could take four to five hours to complete. It has come up […]
Deloitte has launched a new training contract designed to fit into the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE) regime. The new ‘SQE Training Contract’ will be three years long rather that two, and will allow law graduates to begin immediately after finishing university, gaining qualifying legal work experience before sitting Parts 1 and 2 of the new […]
Linklaters has rebooted the format of its training contract offer letter in the first step to embed legal design practices into the production of contracts it produces. The firm has turned the letter from a prosaic Microsoft Word document into a visual, digital version as part of a trial that aims to find ways to […]
When news first emerged that the SRA were planning to make changes to the way solicitors qualified in England and Wales, I was of the view that the system did not need changing and worked well. Indeed I had been through a very similar training system, as had my colleagues at major City and global […]
Oscar Wilde is credited with saying, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”. With competition for training contracts rife, you need to stand out from the crowd. While there is no magic formula to securing a training contract, a strong personal brand will make a big difference. Here are five tips to help you along the way.
UK challenger bank OakNorth has debuted a training contract after receiving authorisation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The bank obtained approval from the regulator last April and it is currently hosting weekly training sessions to ensure compliance with relevant obligations. OakNorth currently houses three paralegals in London who would otherwise leave for external law […]
Osborne Clarke has teamed up with the University of Bristol to debut a new vacation scheme around legal technology, as a number of firms seek the help of external providers to broaden their educational offerings. The scheme, dubbed ‘legal and emerging tech vacation scheme’, was conceived to give students working in the university’s science, technology, […]
Our choice of career is an important decision which we are often asked to make before having sufficient opportunity to reach an informed opinion about the type of job that would suit our skills. To help decide if a career in law is for you, I have picked out five critical skills which, based on […]
Exeter University is to launch a innovation-focused placement year in a law firm as part of a new undergraduate law degree. The South West institution has partnered with US-headquartered Reed Smith to offer the course, which it is calling its LLB Legal Placement degree. Current first-year Exeter LLB students will be the first undergrads to […]
Clifford Chance has launched an technology-focused internship for some of its future trainees, partnering with a lawtech start-up Lexoo, an online legal marketplace. The two-month internship, which began in June, has an initial cohort of two future trainees who have just finished their first year at university. Both were selected from the 2017 Springboard programme, Clifford Chance’s […]
Powered by Lexis Nexis, and featuring experts from the University of Law and Bird & Bird, this webcast explores the future of the legal profession. It looks at the developments currently taking place in the legal market, what those changes will mean for the future, and how students can develop the skills that will be […]
Is there still a social mobility problem in the UK legal profession? How can applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds get ahead? And what effect will the forthcoming to legal education and training have? Experts voice their opinion in our webcast
In this webcast, our expert panel discusses burning trainee concerns, such as: how to go about choosing your area of law, what support to expect from your law firm developing your business and commerce sense should you take a year out after an LPC? how not to feel intimidated by the unfamiliar work environment The panel […]
Powered by Lexis Nexis, and featuring experts from the University of Law and Herbert Smith Freehills, this webcast will help candidates make themselves employable in the eyes of law firms and barristers’ chambers, and land that first job in law. The content covers how to build a CV that can’t be ignored, personal presentation and […]
Harini Iyengar is a barrister at 11KWB, specialising in employment, discrimination and equality, education, partnership, data protection and procurement law. She is the Women’s Equality Party’s candidate for Vauxhall in the upcoming general election.
Christine Cordon has had a varied and unusual career. The first in her family to go to uni, she didn’t do a training contract but was an associate at Ashurst and has worked in America and in-house at the big banks. Now she’s the top lawyer at the holiday start-up Secret Escapes.
Shami Chakrabarti says she was surprised that the January 13 announcement of her imminent departure from civil rights charity Liberty attracted so much attention. Sandwiched between the deaths of singer David Bowie and actor Alan Rickman, the news made the front page of several national newspapers, notably left-leaning duo The Guardian and The Independent. Chakrabarti, […]
