Chambers Student Guide: The Student's Guide to Law Firms and the Bar

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More than 1,600 lawyers across 26 offices worldwide (including an alliance in Brazil). Asia presence bolstered by merger with JSM in 2008. For detailed information on each firm’s vacation scheme, read the ' Get Hired' features alongside each True Picture . Over the past 12 months, the Chambers Student team has interviewed hundreds of trainee lawyers and conducted research into the ever-changing UK legal market to provide you with the most insightful and helpful resources to start a career in law. Cons: Mergers can breed ill-feeling due to unforeseen culture clashes or if US headquarters starts to dictate to London office from afar. Not sure what activities to pursue? Well, this is going to sound cheesy, but the answer has to come from within – it's important that you pursue activities and experiences which you are genuinely interested in and passionate about and which reflect your ambitions and personality. Don't just volunteer or join a society because you think you should. A human rights lawyer once put this to us rather bluntly: “People always ask me, ‘how do I show an interest in human rights law?’ but that’s the wrong way round. People who are genuinely interested will already be involved.” Later, when you're applying for training contracts and vacation schemes, you can't just list your qualities on your application form – you have to demonstrate them through past experience.

Application and selection criteria - Chambers Student Guide

Silicon Valley headquartered firm with 10 US offices as well as Beijing, Shanghai and London. Nearly 900 lawyers worldwide. There is a hierarchical structure to law firms, and while this is felt more strongly at some firms than others, trainees should be prepared to start at the bottom. Salaries follow the hierarchy too, rising with seniority rather than being based on performance. Trainee groups tend to be close-knit and most firms provide some sort of budget for trainee socialising, and larger firms with larger intakes of trainees tend to have more active social scenes. Seat allocation is plain sailing (we’ll stop the puns now), and based on one-to-one conversations the firm has with every trainee. According to our sources, “ the only rule is you have to do a contentious seat at one point.” Once allocated to a seat, “ you write a bio about yourself for your supervisor... it’s super chill and means they know something about you when you join!” Client secondments are also common: current opportunities include a stint with major energy companies. Depending very much on business need, there might also be international secondment opportunities with offices like Dubai, Singapore and Seoul.

Corporate finance, M&A, business litigation, finance and restructuring, commerce and technology, IP, employment and real estate. Try also to get a feel for how different departments work by reading as much as you can. A starting point would be our Solicitors’ practice areas. It’ll help you figure out what sort of work might suit you best and will enable you to ask intelligent questions of your supervisors. Intelligent questions pave the road to success, so lay as many down as possible without becoming annoying. Monkey gifs aside, we wanted to know if there was any time for monkeying around? “It’s hard to meet up across the country, but when our cohort started, our induction was in the Birmingham office for three days and we all went out on one of the nights!” Given the size of the intake, “naturally some people are more social than others, and people have kids and other commitments,” so the firm’s social scene isn’t uber intense. But impromptu drinks after work, fully catered office parties and the annual Christmas party at the Hilton were all on the cards. In addition, practice groups also put on their own events. Interviewees told us that the corporate and finance groups “do the most events, like client dinners and gala balls.” If successful, the third stage is a virtual interview with a member of the future talent team. There will be a mixture of motivational and skills questions.

FAQs - Chambers Student Guide FAQs - Chambers Student Guide

Chambers Student does not rank lawyers or law firms. Our parent publication, Chambers UK, is published annually and ranks lawyers, law firms and barristers' chambers by practice area. At DWF we use our values to help define and reinforce our culture and enable us to recruit, retain and develop the highest quality people. This is reflected in our training programme, where our trainees are made to feel part of the DWF team from the moment of offer. Once within the business, our trainees get a high level of responsibility and exposure to business development, innovation and CSR. Many DWF trainees also have the opportunity to complete a client secondment. Best known for finance; lots of the clients are private equity houses. Corporate, banking, investment funds and international arbitration are the main seat options.Finance, investment management, private equity, oil & gas, natural resources and international arbitration. Our virtual open days take place on the 22 November 2023 and 6 December 2023. Our in-house open days take place on 17 January 2024 and 13 March 2024. Our disability open day takes place on 7 February 2024. Roughly 200 people go through to the assessment centre, which involves a discussion and decision-making exercise, a written task and interview, plus a Q&A with the current trainees. Full service, but London has strong transactional focus on financial services, life sciences and technology. Burges Salmon is an ambitious, sustainable and law inclusive firm that ensures its clients, people and wider communities flourish.