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Slaughter and May is one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. We advise on high-profile and often landmark international transactions. Our excellent and varied client list ranges from governments to entrepreneurs, from retailers to entertainment companies and from conglomerates to Premier League football clubs.
We are a full service law firm to corporate clients and have leading practitioners across a wide range of practice areas including Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate and Commercial, Financing, Tax, Competition, Dispute Resolution, Real Estate, Pensions and Employment, Financial Regulation, Information Technology and Intellectual Property.
Clients need us to ensure that the service we offer is cutting edge, both in terms of harnessing latest market developments, such as legal tech, as well as the quality of our advice. We are committed to a forward thinking, innovative approach to legal service delivery to complement the best in class, business focused advice on which our reputation is built.
We take great store in drawing strength from diversity. With 147 different degree courses from 70 different universities and 45 nationalities represented among our lawyers, our culture is extremely broad.
A World of Difference
There are clear differences between us and other global law firms.
At Slaughter and May we train each of our lawyers to be a multi-specialist equipped to advise on a broad range of legal matters, which at other firms would be handled by a number of different lawyers. We think that by broadening your training and experience, you will be a better lawyer. We have built a reputation for delivering innovative solutions to difficult problems. This reputation has been earned because each of our lawyers advises on broad legal areas, combining experience gained on one type of transaction to solve problems in another. In this way, our lawyers have a varied and interesting workload and ample opportunities to develop close relationships with clients.
Much of our work has an international element and in 2019 we worked with over 225 law firms in more than 80 jurisdictions. We have offices in London, Brussels, Hong Kong and Beijing. In other jurisdictions we prefer to remain agile by leading unified, hand-picked teams of lawyers from market-leading law firms. All the firms we work with across the world have a reputation for excellence and independence that mirrors our own.
At Slaughter and May we also take a different approach to time; there are no set billing or time targets. Some ideas take a matter of seconds but can save companies millions of pounds a year. The type of work we do is not always measurable in minutes. In this way, our lawyers are free to work collaboratively, sharing expertise and knowledge, so that they can concentrate on what matters most – the quality of the work and client service.
And finally, we ensure that this difference in approach filters through to our Diversity and Inclusion strategy. Traditional approaches are often skewed towards initiatives helping diverse individuals to “fit in” and succeed; we focus on examining and adjusting the system for greater acceptance of different leadership styles and ways of working.
For more information please visit www.slaughterandmay.com
Stonewall Top 100 Employers 2019
Top 50 Social Mobility Employers Index 2019
Business in the Community Race at Work charter - signatory.
Business in the Community Best Employers for Race
1st year open days
Our open days provide first year students with an insight into the legal profession and City law firms.
Work experience schemes
Our work experience schemes provide penultimate year students with the opportunity to get involved in legal work and attend training sessions.
Winter workshops
Our workshops give finalists and graduates an insight into the firm and the work that we do.
Training Contract
During the two-year training contract, trainees turn their hand to a broad range of work, taking an active role in four, five or six legal groups while sharing an office with a partner or experienced associate. All trainees spend at least two six-month seats in our market leading corporate, commercial and financing groups. Subject to gaining some contentious experience, they choose how to spend the remaining time.
Our overseas offices and close working relationships with market-leading law firms in other jurisdictions mean there are opportunities for trainees to apply for a secondment in their second year. Recent trainee secondment destinations include: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands. Spain, Norway, Sweden, Singapore, India, Russia, Hong Kong and the US.
Trainees are also encouraged to understand advances in the legal industry, and possibly even help to shape them, by joining our Innovation Network. The Network has over 200 members including an online forum for publishing thought and insight pieces, and for engaging in debate. Challenging the way we work through open-mindedness, diversity and creativity can have an enormous impact on results for our clients, our efficiency, and our wellbeing.
Slaughter and May recruiters share their top tips for applicants:
Check your application before you submit it
Always take the time to proof read your application for typos or errors before you submit it or ask a friend to check it over for you.
Prepare for your interview
Preparation is all about doing your research on us and being able to answer questions like why are you applying to us specifically and why do you want to work as a commercial solicitor?
Get in touch
If you have any queries, contact the Trainee Recruitment Team. We will be happy to talk through any concerns and answer your questions.
Excellence never comes from just one perspective. Our teams are drawn from lawyers from different backgrounds and with different viewpoints. They deliver the best advice for our clients by collaborating to find innovative, commercial solutions. A fully open and inclusive environment ensures that the brightest minds will always flourish.
We aim to employ the brightest minds regardless of what or where they have studied you will find graduates from over 70 universities at Slaughter and May. Disability is irrelevant to our application process. A law degree is not essential, only about half of our trainees studied law as undergraduates.
What do we look for?
Our trainees come from a range of universities – it is the quality of the candidate, not the university that is important to us. We like people with:
*A sharp intellect – our work is intellectually demanding so the minimum standard we look for is three strong A levels (or equivalent) and either a high 2:1 or a 1st in your first degree.
Applications
We have approximately 80 vacancies for trainee solicitors each year. We look for candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds with a good 2:1 at undergraduate level from any university, and take an equal mix of law and non-law graduates. We use the Rare Contextual Recruitment System across all our trainee recruitment activity. The system helps us to identify high potential candidates by putting applicants’ grades and achievements in the context of their social and educational background.
Applications should be submitted using the online form, which can be accessed via the link below: www.slaughterandmay.com/careers/trainee-solicitors. You will be asked to provide some personal details (including a full breakdown of all your examination results) and to attach your cover letter and CV. Your cover letter should tell us about you, why you are interested in a career in law and why you are applying to Slaughter and May. You should also include any other information which you think may be relevant to your application. Please ensure that your cover letter is no longer than one side of A4 and address it to Janine Arnold, Senior Manager – Trainee Recruitment.
We encourage candidates to submit their application as early as possible during an application window. Interviews will be scheduled, and training contract offers will be made on a rolling basis. We are unable to guarantee the availability of places as we progress with these interviews.
Slaughter and May is committed to ensuring that our recruitment processes are barrier-free and inclusive as possible to everyone. This includes making adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition. We have included some examples below but we would encourage candidates to get in touch to discuss their individual needs.
Extra time
We can arrange for candidates to be given extra time to complete the written exercise and article reading.
Equipment/materials
Candidates can bring their own equipment with them for example laptops with screen readers. We can also provide a printer if candidates would prefer to check their work in hard copy rather than on the screen and we can provide materials in a large font.
Timings
We can adjust the timings of the day where necessary to include breaks.
We have a Disability Working Group which includes representatives from across the firm, including partners, who work together to ensure our policies, practices and processes are inclusive of disabled people, and that our recruitment process is disability confident.
Our reasonable adjustment process is designed with the individual in mind. When you request a reasonable adjustment, the Health and Safety team will work with you to determine the best adjustments to meet your needs and conduct on-going reviews to make sure that any changes to best practice, technology or your condition are considered.
Our recruitment team regularly attend the Recruiters’ Club Disability Cafés, which supports recruiters and builds their confidence and knowledge about disability in recruitment.
Slaughter and May are also members of the Business Disability Forum and individuals within the firm attend regular conferences and seminars helping the firm to establish barrier-free processes and procedures; and ensure that we adhere to the latest guidelines on disability. We also host some of these events on behalf of the Business Disability Forum.
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