Training Contracts, Apprenticeships and Work Experience
Training Contracts
We offer between four and eight training contracts each year. This small number ensures the experience gained by our trainee solicitors maximises their potential to become successful Lyons Davidson solicitors of the future. We aim to retain our trainees once they qualify as solicitors and see them continue their legal careers with us.
We welcome applications from internal and external applicants who demonstrate the desire, intellect and commitment to develop a successful career in law. However, we aren’t just looking for the traditional law graduate: we welcome applications from graduates in other subjects who have the appropriate cross-qualification. We’re looking for applicants to demonstrate their relevant achievements, skills and experience, commercial awareness, a good understanding of Lyons Davidson as a company and a strong motivation to complete a training contract with us.
Training contracts at Lyons Davidson are usually arranged into four six-month seats. Our training contracts are predominantly Bristol-based but some seats may be in our other office locations: Cardiff, Leeds or Solihull. Most trainees will spend six months in a personal injury or civil litigation seat.
During each seat, trainees have full access to their supervisor – an experienced Partner or Associate – who is there to guide learning through day-to-day delegation of tasks, accompanied with research and project work. Performance is continuously reviewed through personal reflection and formal appraisals. Trainees also have the opportunity to be involved in different projects and working parties during their training contract to enhance their skillset and learn more about our business.
Work Experience Programme (non-graduate)
We recognise that our future success is the talent entering our business. With this in mind, we’ve established a work-experience scheme aimed at non-graduates who have a keen interest in developing a legal career and have decided that the option of going to university may not be for them.
Each year we run a work-experience programme that is tailored towards non-graduates. The focus of this scheme is for sixth-form or college students nearing the end of their studies or those who have recently completed their studies.
The programme aims to give students an insight into the day-to-day workings of a national law firm. Students who completed previous programmes spent time with many of our practice areas, from specific legal departments to the support side of the business.
Our work-experience programme is advertised at the beginning of each year – please check our candidate portal for more details and to sign up to job alerts so you are notified when we are accepting applications.
Please note this work experience programme is aimed at sixth-form and college-level students. Because of the nature of this programme, we will not accept applications from university students or graduates.
Apprenticeship opportunities
Apprenticeships provide a vocational qualification while working and, over the last few years, we’ve offered a number of apprenticeship opportunities, both legal and support based, which have been a great success.
Our Legal Apprenticeships take the form of a Paralegal Legal Apprenticeship over two years, ending in a Level 3 CILEx Paralegal Qualification and a number of our apprentices have previously progressed to study the Level 6 CILEx Chartered Legal Executive Apprenticeship.
We also offer apprenticeships within our contact centre team, leading to the achievement of contact centre apprenticeship qualifications.
Please see our vacancies page for details of any current apprenticeship opportunities or sign up to receive job alerts for future vacancies.
For more information about training contracts, work experience and apprenticeship opportunities at Lyons Davidson, contact our HR team by calling 0117 904 6000 or emailing [email protected].