Law
join Linklaters, their understanding of commercial law, and their motivation for doing the solicitor apprenticeship,” Pennington says. “After completing the application form, all our applicants do the Watson Glaser test. It’s an online
are completely free,” says Pennington. “But others focus on their work during the week and study at the weekends instead.” Linklaters is careful to prioritise apprentices’ work-life balance. “We’re quite strict on the protected
critical thinking test that assesses your ability to deduce information, recognise assumptions, and evaluate arguments.” This is followed by a 45-minute competency-based interview with Linklaters’ early careers team. “The final stage is a full day assessment centre in the London
hours for our apprentices during the apprenticeship – they work from 9.30am to 5.30pm”, confirms Pennington.
Each apprentice has a partner mentor who supports them throughout their six years
“Although occasionally they may ask to stay on later, because they want to be part of a deal or they want to see something they’ve been working on through to conclusion. That is allowed on an ad hoc basis, if it’s beneficial for their development”. The firm doesn’t expect its apprentices to have had any previous work experience before applying. “Our selection process focuses on why they want to
office,” Pennington explains. “There’s a group exercise, a written task, and an interview with a partner and a managing associate.” For those that are successful, the solicitor apprenticeship begins in September.
was interesting too, because of the different personalities you meet and the different issues you’re working on. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I found the best way for me to learn was by just doing it. Once you’ve done things a few times, you quickly pick up what’s required and what you need to think about. For me, being hands-on was the best learning tool. For the degree part of the apprenticeship we’re studying with the University of Law (ULaw) and there are exams every four months. There’s one study-day per week which I usually take on a Monday, but it can be moved around if you have a work deadline on that day or you need to be in court. All of our lectures are online, either live or recorded, and then there are weekly assignments to complete. When the exams come around, I always let my team know so that they can manage the workload to make sure you can focus on studying after work. As the number of exams and the complexity of the topics increased,
we’re encouraged to practice the questions every day. I’m currently working on eight topics for the first part of the initial SQE exams and that’s going to double for the next part, so it’s a lot to learn. I think the apprenticeship has been incredibly valuable. The biggest thing for me, while I’ve been studying the theory and working at the firm, is that what you learn in the textbook has a completely different feel to how it’s actually done in practice. When I eventually qualify as a solicitor, I would love to stay at Pinsent Masons. I am really enjoying my experience at the firm and look forward to exploring more new areas of law as a part of my trainee solicitor rotation. ”
it did become more challenging, and I had to be a lot stricter with my time management. One study- day a week wasn’t always enough. I’ve now completed all the exams for my degree but I still need to submit my portfolio of work, which is a 9,000-word statement which sets out how I’ve achieved all the different standards required of a solicitor. In September this year, I transitioned into the trainee phase of the apprenticeship and am now doing a series of placements in other legal teams within the firm, whilst working towards my SQE (solicitors’ qualifying examination). Studying for the SQE is very different because you have weekly tests on a question bank and
Degree Apprenticeships 61
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