Trainee Solicitor Blog

The first thing that firms often look for are examples of working within a team.  This can easily be exemplified by participation in sports teams, or by joining a committee. Whilst you may have played football for your local village team until the age of 15, this is not likely to impress a recruiter who will be wondering what you’ve been doing with your spare time for the last seven years. 

There is a vast amount of teams, clubs and common interest groups available at each university throughout the country.  You don’t have to be the best sportsman or the greatest debater – you just need to show that you have at least participated and been a part of a group environment looking to achieve a common goal.  After all, even most sole practitioners will have a team of people that they work with day in, day out. 

Experience of working within a group environment, in whatever context that may be, can also help you with difficult application questions.  For example, “describe a situation where you have effectively used your arguments to persuade a group of others to agree with you, resulting in a successful outcome.”  A difficult question to answer at the best of times. 

University is also the perfect opportunity to gain work experience.  Ideally, this would be in the legal sector, although it can be difficult to obtain such experience.  However, many firms offer ‘vacation (vac) schemes’ although several firms have put such schemes on hold for the time being, and others would be open to offering some part-time work on the basis that you are a law student. 

It is definitely worth writing to local firms to enquire about any work that they may be able to offer you.  This could be an ongoing arrangement throughout the year, or alternatively, as with vac schemes, a few weeks during one of your holidays.  This will enable you to gain valuable experience of working within a professional legal environment, and could even help you to decide whether or not this is the career that you wish to pursue.   

It is definitely worth trying to gain experience in the type of firm that you would wish to work for during your career.  It will not only help you in making your career decisions, but also shows the firms which you apply to that you have thought about where you’d like to end up and that you have taken appropriate steps to demonstrate this. 

Ultimately, even if you want to work for an international commercial firm but are only able to secure experience in a high street firm, you can honestly explain this to the recruiter in an interview, highlighting the fact that any experience at all is difficult to come by in today’s climate.  Any work undertaken, even non-legal work, during a degree will also show recruiters that you have time-management skills and are able to prioritise effectively. 

Other avenues to explore are volunteer and charity work.  Volunteer work, or ‘pro bono’ work as it is often referred to, is an easy way to gain legal experience in a wide variety of areas and shows your dedication to having a career in the legal profession. 

Finally, you can also build on, for example, your language skills during university.  Where possible, try learning a language such as Russian or Chinese.  A recent article stated that languages such as this are far more attractive to a legal recruiter than French, German or Spanish, particularly the large international and City firms. 

Building on these areas will take effort, enthusiasm and time.  Saying that, if you put the work in during the course of your degree, it may save you a lot of effort and time when you begin the hunt for a training contract.

Very informative.. I’ve definitely learnt quite a lot out of this one! Especially the building up on language skills idea.. Russian and Chinese, I would never have known that. I’ll be looking into some voluntary work as well. I don’t know how easy it will be though, because I just finished my first year.