Early careers

Years one–four

• You can expect to rotate around our market-leading practice groups on annual seat rotations. You will have a dedicated supervisor and partner mentor within the team to help you manage your working day, as well as many other touchpoints in the knowledge teams and assistant and trainee populations.
• You will work four days a week in our London office, with one day a week studying towards your Law LLB at BPP on their Waterloo campus.

Years five–six

• You can expect to complete shorter rotations in our London practice groups, with the opportunity to go on a client or network secondment towards the end of year six.
• You will continue your studies with BPP, focussing on the SQE content, but this time in a full-time study model, taking time out of work to focus on completing your SQE exams.

We value diversity of thought and experience in our lawyers and this especially applies to those who are going to join us on our apprentice programme. However, here are some attributes that will help you succeed:

• Enthusiastic and driven to achieve
  
  • Having enthusiasm and a willingness to do what it takes to meet a goal
• Agile and flexible learner
  
  • You are curious about acquiring new knowledge or learning new skills and doing things in different ways
• Resilient and tenacious
  • You have confidence in your abilities, but can adapt to new challenges as and when they arise  
• Team orientated and people-focussed
  
  • You enjoy working with others towards a common goal and are excited by working with a range of colleagues and clients

You can expect a starting salary of £28,000, which will increase each year you progress through our programme. We also offer a £3,000 sign-on bonus to our successful solicitor apprentices who accept our offer to help with some of those starting out costs, whether that’s travel or housing. Alongside that, all your study fees with BPP will be paid meaning you will have no student debt.

The firm offers 26 days holidays a year, as well as a range of lifestyle benefits, including private medical schemes and gym plans.

Our application process starts with our online application which will be made up of structured questions to help us understand why you are interested in a solicitor apprenticeship and in the business world more broadly. This will be followed by two psychometric tests. If you are successful through each of these stages, you will be invited to take part in our in-person assessment centre. This will be made up of four assessments with a theme that runs through the day. For those who are invited onto an assessment centre, there will be a pre-assessment centre insight day to give you the opportunity to learn more about the apprenticeship, the firm and what we are looking for. You will also have the opportunity to meet our early careers team and a range of our lawyers.

Application stages

• Online application form
• Online assessments, including the Watson Glaser Test
• In-person assessment centre at our London office, comprised of:
  • Written Test
  • Problem Solving Discussion with Associates
  • Group Exercise
  • Partner Interview

If you have any questions about our application process or require any reasonable adjustments through the assessment process, please email us at ukearlycareers@freshfields.com.