Law students’ insight into local authority work

Student members of the Law Students' Network (LSN) were treated to talks by a range of speakers that included Birmingham’s head of planning and development, and two newly qualified solicitors who trained at Birmingham CC.

The variety of work undertaken by local authority lawyers is wide-ranging and includes civil and criminal litigation, freedom of information and data protection, licensing, employment, housing and property work. 

Chair and founder of the LSN, Abeje Gordon, said: “The event was extremely useful as it illustrated the difference between working in-house for a local authority and working in private practice for a law firm. It was important for us as a network with a large number of student members to host this event as we wanted to give our members an insight into other career paths. The event highlighted that there are other ways to qualify as a lawyer other than undertaking a traditional mainstream training contract at a law firm.”

Recruitment for training contracts at the council takes place in September-October each year with vacancies usually advertised on its website and in the local press.