Should I go to university or try one of the new routes, such as an apprenticeship? Some lawyers begin their careers immediately after leaving school
Why are work placement schemes so important? Getting work experience at law firms is often an essential aspect
of securing a training contract. Work placement/vacation schemes (usually run during university holidays) provide an opportunity for you to find out about not only the law, but also individual firms. Firms increasingly rely on work placement schemes to figure out which candidates they want to take on as trainees, so getting on a scheme is a great chance to impress and earn the offer of a training contract.
by taking the apprenticeship route, which enables an aspiring lawyer to learn ‘on the job’ in a paid role, with some time each week allocated for study. Solicitor apprenticeships also allow those with A levels to qualify as a solicitor without going to university, while there are various other kinds of apprenticeship for candidates at different stages, including paralegal and chartered legal executive apprenticeships. See the ‘Apprenticeships’ section on p6 for more detail and The Law Apprenticeships Guide 2022 .
Do law firms prefer candidates to have a law degree? Most firms are looking to recruit a
How do I go about getting legal work experience?
balance of law and non-law graduates – in fact, roughly half of all solicitors are from non-law backgrounds. Studying another subject at university may also help to make you a more well-rounded individual. This means that if you have a burning desire to study English literature, but think you might want a career as a lawyer, it’s fine to do English at university and complete a law conversion. This postgraduate course squeezes the essential elements of a qualifying law degree into one year. You then join the law graduates and do either the Legal Practice Course (LPC), Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) or Bar course, followed by a training contract in a law firm or a pupillage in a set of chambers. But note: most firms do favour traditional academic subjects (eg, history or sciences) over more modern options (eg, media studies or drama).
As above, work placement schemes are a great way to learn more about the profession and many firms run schemes specifically for first years. You can see a comprehensive list of firm schemes on LawCareers.Net’s work placement deadlines page. But you are not restricted to these structured programmes – you could get a day or two shadowing a trainee or lawyer simply by writing speculatively to firms/chambers you’re interested in or which are local to you. You should also get involved with university pro bono schemes or legal advice centres. All these experiences provide a valuable introduction to the types of work and client relationships that lawyers are involved with every day.
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