Tips for Wannabe Trainee Solicitors Looking For a Training Contract

For those wanting to become trainee solicitors, the recession has made things particularly tough.Today’s job market for anyone wanting to enter the legal profession is particularly competitive.

Solicitors firms have reduced their numbers of training contracts at the same time as more and more people are graduating from law school and searching for a training contract.

The training contract is the period of practical legal training lasting two years, usually with a law firm.  It is the modern day version of articles and is effectively an apprenticeship where law graduates are trained by qualified lawyers in a range of practical legal skills.

Trainee solicitors will usually do 3 or 4 seats during the two years and consisting of a different type of work in each one.  Typically these seats might be split between contentious work, property related work and non-contentious work such as commercial law in larger firms or wills and probate in smaller high street firms.

When making the choice about which firms to apply to for their training contract, students should be spending lots of time researching both the different firms that exist and the types of law they could practise.It is not uncommon for this stage not to be planned thoroughly enough and for trainees to discover they have perhaps made the wrong choices.

The study of a particular areas of law is often different to the actual practise of that same area of law.This is the reason for law students being encouraged to get as much work experience with law firms as possible.

Law students can form their own opinions about law firms and particular types of law through legal work experience.Solicitors firms do vary greatly in terms of their cultures, sizes and types of work they do and the type of experience they can provide. It is important therefore to examine these differences as soon as possible.

For anyone wanting to avoid a nasty surprise when they finally start work they should ensure they do the necessary research on which firms to apply to for a training contract.

There are also many resources found on the internet which set out information about the different law firms and the areas of law they practise.Candidates just need to search for ‘legal careers’ or similar in a search engine and they will see there is a lot on information available.Also, many university careers offices have extensive information about law firms and other organisations who offer training contracts.

Also bear in mind that a lot of the law firms start recruiting their trainee solicitors over two years before they want them to start.  It therefore pays to be organised from an early stage at university so as to leave enough time to research the firms and the types of law available in order to be able to make informed choices about where to apply to for a training contract when the time comes.