Solicitor Apprenticeship

[stubiff]

My DC is starting to investigate this (and other sectors), so thought we'd share some findings which may be of use to others.

According to Legal Cheek, Slaughter and May offer 6 level 7 apprenticeships. Looking at what they want on the cv, it’s a big ask for 18 year olds. Note the bit about employment, work experience and, not least, extra curricular activities. The latter being something MN says is not important. Suddenly it is. I’m sure 6 will be found but they may not be 18!

Just had a look out of curiosity @TizerorFizz and it seemed quite normal requirements. Was exactly same for my friend’s dc who is doing a solicitor apprenticeship at a regional firm. She got it in her gap year so was only18 or 19.
They want to see a dc can juggle work and study. So academics, paid work, extra curricular and legal work experience (inc online) pretty standard stuff.

@Cakeandusername Im not saying it’s unusual or wrong but a DC doing A levels will struggle with some of this. Doing it in a gap year gives time. So many people on MN say extra curriculars are a waste of time. These requirements suggest they are not. I would think quite a few DC would not get near these ideals at 17/18 in y13.

My dc is 18 and all her peers pt worked, studied, hobbies and volunteered. I thought that was normal for high achieving dc. The girl I know got reserve listed for one prestigious apprenticeship applying during A levels then carried on applying and secured solicitor apprenticeship in gap year. But then I haven’t seen posts saying extra curricular waste of time. They few dc I personally know who got degree apprenticeships all balanced paid pt work and also got top grades.

I just did a search on the programme mentioned. It has just been launched so there will be no solicitor apprentices there yet as applications close about end of this year. People next year will probably be see via a linkedin search which people go those ones this year at that firm.

@Cakeandusername There is a lot of advice which tells young people to stick to super curricular and don’t worry about extra curricular. This is because unis don’t care and assume you are rich and parents have paid for it. It’s advice that’s not necessarily followed as dc do sport and music etc but it’s very clear unis don’t care about extra curricular activities. The stark difference is apprenticeships do. Well S&M do. Loads of 6th formers do not work and do not volunteer. If they want an apprenticeship they might need to review what they do at 15/16. The majority just focus on uni. So advice needs to change if 16 year olds want to target apprenticeships at 18. It’s not the same as aiming for uni where A level grades count more than anything else and at many unis, little else matters.

So, I put the S&May link as an example of the 'Welcome' and 'Q&A' sessions. really.
The CV part, on there, I read as 'it should include those things if you've done them', not 'you must have all those things', because some may not. However, for the top firms a lot/all will have all those things.
I do know some firms say you do not need Legal work experience to apply, e.g. WFW, but as always, the more of anything/everything you have, (probably) the better.

Except they list them as the cv sections. So it’s reasonable to assume they are looking for them. If they are mostly optional, the cv section listing everything is a bit of a waste. I would take it as it’s best to have something to say in the sections. It would be interesting to know what successful candidates are offering at such high profile firms.

If you google solicitor apprentice and firm name you can get quite a lot of info in LinkedIn. I typed solicitor apprentice linklaters. Some list A level grades, some what work experience done.

I just tried that for Linklaters (Slaughter and May where I used to work, as I said above, has only just launched its programme for 2025).
First hit is a boy who attended a private Islamic boarding school in Blackburn and started the apprenticeship 2 years after A levels.

Next one - female - attended a top state grammar; not white either, but I am not saying only BAME people get on these programmes.

Next one female, muslim; had a year gap after A levels; has very high grades etc.
Next one male muslim, started apprenticeship straight after school.

From this research so far it looks like you need to be one of the 18% of the UK which is BAME and ideally also one of the UK's 3m mulism (out of 67m people in the UK) to get an apprenticeship.

Anyway it is just a google search so nothing scientific and if deprivation is mostly amongst BAME muslims and if the apprenticeships are for them then the programme is working.

Fucking weird to start racially profiling a group of school leavers.

I did a google search - that is all and people were asking how many years out of school were the apprentices and what super curriculars did they have so I went to have a look at that and was rather surprised at the results. It seems to be the firms that are racially profiling not people looking on line.

@Xenia I certainly wondered if the apprenticeships were being used to “massage” employment stats. There are so few apprentice positions it would be interesting to see what the others look like in terms of recruitment profiles.

@WAMozart Do you think firms and unis don’t do this?

Solicitor apprentices are offered in such small numbers especially to school leavers.
https://www.legalcheek.com/the-solicitor-apprenticeship-most-list/

Yes, all I did with my google search was look at the people who came up on it. The reason this kind of data is important (and the same goes for who gets training contracts after university) is so the very many good applicants who are applying can get an idea of who is being hired and who is not - in other words facts and data. Then they can apply to places where they might be likely to be hired and not waste time on places where they might not. IF and I might well be wrong age 18 apprenticeships at law firms for very bright 18 year olds are going to those from disadvantaged backgrounds then 18 years olds from middle class families in good state schools etc probably need to know that before bothering to apply.. I looked at one firm. There are lots of others so teenagers can do their own searches and decide and it may well also vary regionally with better chances for different kinds of people in different areas.

I have one paralegal apprentice in my in house team (worked here already) and will be recruiting for a solicitor apprentice next year. Seems to work well for what I need and I'd expect them to stay on once qualified.

@Cakeandusername
To be expected that numbers are low at this point.
A Leeds firm has 20 TC and 2 Apprentices.
Apprenticeships are new. For the Solicitor one there have only been a couple of years of people completing it.
Some big firms have only introduced it last year or for 2025.
A firm isn't going to flip those numbers, from a tried and tested method of 'come to us after you've got all your qualifications' (bearing in mind SQE pass rate is around 50%) to 'we'll take a risk, a lot earlier, and pay you for it. Also, if the total numbers remained the same, then they'd be without people (at a certain year/level) for 4 or so years as the Apprentice cohorts catch up.
Hopefully (for those wanting to go down that route), there'll be a gradual shift of increasing the apprentice numbers and reducing the TC/Graduate numbers, but I think it will be slow and the latter will always be the majority.
If Apprentices prove that they are a better fit/employee to the firms (post degree/NQ) then there'll probably be more of a shift.

In a sense it is going back to roots. In the 1800s my grandfather's brother was articled to a solicitor (and he took an external LLB from London University and then set up on his own in Leeds in the 1980s). That is why we need/want 2 years of training before qualification because as well as needing to know the law you also can really only learn on the job by doing the work so the 5 or 6 years from age 18 of work and study is pretty sensible way to do it. My twins went to university (non law degree), then 2 years post grad studies then trainees so qualified at 25 so not too different in time from an 18 year apprentice to qualification.

The apprenticeship levy big companies including big law firms have to pay the state (yet another tax on business like employer NI, compulsory auto enrolment pension contributions and much else) might as well be used by the firms themselves

Your grandfather’s brother did well to set up a firm when he was already over 100 years old!

I think if it was left to the firms I think there would be fewer. With the Levy, they are kind of coerced into offering them, to make use of that money. Otherwise it's lost.

Very interesting thread. DD doing a non law degree and may look at graduate apprenticeships - this link is interesting about top firms committing to this training route - firms ca reclaim there apprenticeship levy so makes sense to them
www.lawcareers.net/Explore/LCNSays/Whats-the-difference-between-a-solicitor-and-graduate-apprenticeship

@Juja The numbers they are committing to is minuscule though. Legal Cheek has the data. The TC route is still the largest number of recruits. Is a post degree apprenticeship a thing? According to Legal Cheek it’s not. There are firms that pay for GDL though.

@Juja
They'd either (I think) have to do the PGDL first, see https://www.weightmans.com/careers/early-careers/apprenticeships/graduate-solicitor-apprenticeship/
Or find a Graduate Apprenticeship for non-Law, see https://cmsemergingtalent.com/programmes/england-wales-ni/graduate-solicitor-apprenticeships/
I think the latter may be pretty rare.

@TizerorFizz
Yes, quite a few firms are doing Graduate Apprenticeships (in fact some have gone that way over the TC), either post Law degree, or post non-Law + PGDL.
i.e. you do the SQE and earn at the same time, exactly the same as the Yr 5/6 (ish) of the Soli Apprenticeship.

It’s not a route on Legal Cheek. Interesting though. The advantage is with the firm due to paying the levy. Cannot see the advantage to the young person.