Visual impairment
Who we are: We’re a leading global corporate law firm. But we’re not a typical one. Far from it. Life here means doing the best work for exceptional clients while being yourself. We look for individuals, not for ‘typical lawyers’. We’re focused, but we know how to have fun. And we collaborate. At every level. Which makes this a brilliant place to learn. To find your feet quickly. To get ahead. So, are you ready?
What we do and where:
We offer legal expertise across a broad spectrum of commercial issues. And we have a diverse mix of clients. They include everyone from governments, regulators and trade bodies through to big corporates, global banks and not-for-profit organisations.
That variety definitely makes life here interesting. As does the scale and scope of what we do. Our work covers Corporate; Global Financial Markets; Real Estate; Litigation & Dispute Resolution; and Tax, Pensions & Employment.
And when it comes to where we are, we work in major financial centres across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
How you can get involved:
You don’t need a law degree to join us. (About half of our trainees come from non-law backgrounds.) What matters is that you’re resilient, curious, creative and open to new challenges. You’re someone who loves to learn. A great problem solver. A smart thinker. You’re commercially-savvy, solutions-oriented and up for working as part of a close-knit team.
One of the ways you can show us you have what it takes is to experience life here before you apply for your Training Contract. Take a look at our website to explore our different programmes for students – they range from Open Days through to summer schemes and virtual events.
Find out more about us
Visit our careers site
As a responsible business, we support our people in developing resilience and managing their wellbeing. We believe these are fundamental blocks in building a sustainable business and providing excellent service to all our clients.
We are committed to attracting, developing and retaining the best team to deliver the very highest level of service to our clients. As part of this commitment, we invest in our people’s wellbeing so that they can perform at their full potential. This means caring for their physical and mental health.
We have made it a strategic objective to support our people in developing their resilience. One way in which we are doing this is through our Employee Assistance Programme, which provides individual support from trained counsellors as well as fast access to a range of services, including life management advice. Following successful trials in a number of locations, our Employee Assistance Programme is now being rolled out to all of our offices worldwide.
We realise that working in a law firm can be a pressurised and demanding environment. Our wellbeing agenda aims to ensure our people are able to recognise and appreciate the importance of maintaining good mental health and in building their resilience and ability to operate healthily and successfully. Promoting a healthy lifestyle is another focus. We support our people in making healthier choices and encourage them to view exercise as a social activity.
As a graduate recruitment team, we are extremely open and encourage applicants to inform us if they ever need any adjustments to our process. We deal with every individual on a case by case basis and have made adjustments accordingly from the more common time extension of the online tests to inviting candidates into the office ahead of their assessment day to familiarise themselves with the building to ease their anxiety…and everything in between.
Visual impairment
We offer the following positions:
First Year Scheme
Clifford Chance SPARK is our award-winning opportunity for exceptional first-year students. It’s your chance to gain an insider’s view into what a career in law can look like.
During the five-day paid scheme, you’ll experience an intensive schedule of classroom-based activity, time spent shadowing lawyers in our practice areas, and a trip to one of our international offices so you can see the global network in practice. It’ll be fast-paced, dynamic and packed full of exciting opportunities.
Penultimate year
Our two-week Vacation Scheme is designed for penultimate-year students. You’ll benefit from an unparalleled introduction to the world of commercial law, undertaking real work and interacting with people at every level of our business. You’ll work with lawyers experienced in one of our practice areas. You’ll also have the support of a supervising lawyer and a trainee ‘buddy’ who you can turn to at any stage.
You’ll receive a weekly salary of £450 and should you require any financial assistance with travel or accommodation, then please contact the graduate recruitment team.
Likewise, if you need any adjustments to be made at any stage of the process, please just get in touch.
Training Contract
We’ve designed the Training Contract to give you the breadth of experience you need to emerge as a confident business adviser. Your four rotations will include seats in our core areas of Finance, Corporate and Capital Markets, plus one other.
In addition to this, there are client secondments, international secondments and split-seat opportunities along the way. This ensures that you get the widest range of exposure to our business while meeting the requirements of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). We aim to offer you the flexibility to drive your Training Contract forward in a way that best suits you.
We want every candidate to have exactly the same chance to get through our recruitment process so if there is anything that you are worried about then please speak to us and we will do our best to accommodate any adjustments.
We are looking for individuals with the skills such as team work, resilience, attention to detail and building relationships – as long as you are able to demonstrate these then that is all that matters.
Ask for adjustments early
Please do not wait until afterwards to tell us that there was a problem as that is often too late.
It is your decision to be open
Part of this discussion will be whether you need/want anyone to know about your disability.
We operate a blind CV policy
Whereby your interviewers do not know anything about you so you can choose what you tell them.
We are looking for individuals with the skills such as team work, resilience, attention to detail and building relationships – as long as you are able to demonstrate these then that is all that matters.
When students are going through our recruitment process and they need any type of adjustment, we need them to be completely open and upfront about what they need. If it is feasible then we will do whatever we can to accommodate this.
We have made a number of adjustments to our process such as
At every stage of our process, we ask if you require any adjustments but you can always contact us on graduate.recruitment@cliffordchance.com or 020 7006 4005.
If you need adjustments then please always give the employer as much notice as possible. It can be very disruptive if you want until you are about to start an exercise with other candidates on an assessment day to announce that you need extra time for example. Please also do not wait until you have been unsuccessful to tell us about something that could have made your experience more comfortable. We rely on you to tell us what it is that you need.
As a Firm we make reasonable adjustments for all individuals to enable them to carry out their role. This can be anything from a different type of mouse, specialist software to help with various disabilities or allowing extra time to complete tasks. As each person may have specific requirements and these can vary we ensure that their individual needs are addressed to the best of our ability.
Our building is fully accessible and an Accessibility Audit was completed when we first moved into the building and another is due to take place later this year.
The list of adjustments made to date is endless. We just encourage and urge individuals to share their particular challenges so hopefully we can address these and provide the appropriate support.
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