Training Contracts.

The training contract is usually built around six-month ‘seats’ in four different practice areas – often including a seat in one of our international offices or on a client secondment. Once you start your training contract, the Trainee Development team will work with you to plan these seats. Obviously, we have to meet the needs of the business, but you will have the opportunity to express the kind of experience that you want, through seats and secondments.

As you pass through each practice area, a Group Trainee Solicitor Partner (GTSP) will oversee your progress in that particular seat. The GTSP works with your principal to give you feedback on your performance and development points through periodic appraisals. While the Trainee Development team provides continuity and big-picture support, your principal and the GTSPs provide highly focused support at a local level. There are also specific seminars and training modules during each seat relevant to each practice area.

We’ll give you a say in the content of your training, as well as some flexibility to change your preferences as you go along. At key stages during your training contract you will discuss your progress with the Trainee Development team and draw up a plan for the remainder of your training.

The Linklaters training and development programme is widely acknowledged to be one of the best of its kind in the world. Bringing substantial investment, an innovative approach, an entrepreneurial focus and a global outlook to legal education, we’ve created a career-long learning programme that is consistent across our global network and uniquely focused on creating a new kind of international commercial lawyer. Over two-thirds of our trainees go on client and/or international secondments. Client secondments include placements with investment banks, blue-chip multinationals and pro bono organisations, while international postings range from Paris and New York to Shanghai and Dubai. All of which means that the experience gained by our lawyers is truly multi-dimensional.

Whether you are a law graduate fresh from university, or a non-law graduate who has just completed the GDL, you will spend time at Linklaters before you start face-to-face teaching on the LPC. We want you to feel part of the team as soon as you have decided to join us, so before starting the LPC, everyone comes together in London for the LPC Gateway Programme which is an introduction to the firm and the City. It’s a great opportunity to meet your future colleagues, get a feel for our business and make friends who’ll stay with you throughout your career.

We provide funding for both the GDL and the LPC and provide a maintenance grant.

After qualifying, you will join one of the practice areas you worked in as a trainee. This is a big decision because it sets a course for your career. There has to be a fit between what you want to do and the business needs of the firm but, when choosing your speciality, you should choose the kind of law you most enjoy doing, because that's what you'll be best at. It's easier to do this at Linklaters than some other law firms because we have such strong teams in all disciplines.

Applications for law students open 1 June 2012 and close 31 July 2012.