DWF is a leading global provider of integrated legal and business services, operating across eight key sectors in over 31 global locations with over 4,000 people. Our purpose is to deliver positive outcomes with our colleagues, clients and communities.

The legal market has changed profoundly in the last decade and the speed of change continues to increase. There is a clear and growing desire for legal services to be delivered in an easier and more efficient way.

DWF is a leading global provider of integrated legal and business services.

We listen to our clients and there is a growing desire for legal and business services to be delivered in an easier and more efficient way. So, we've built our business and designed our range of services on this principle.

We have three offerings – legal services, legal operations and business services. Our ability to seamlessly combine any number of these services to deliver bespoke solutions for our clients is our key differentiator. Delivered through our global teams across eight core sectors, our integrated legal management approach delivers greater efficiency, price certainty and transparency for our clients without compromising on quality or service.

The two-week vacation scheme gives you the chance to work with partners, associates and trainees across two different practice groups. You'll work on live legal matters and will be given responsibility right from the start.

This is combined with a variety of internal workshops and presentations, helping you understand DWF as a business. You'll also complete a group or solo project that's designed to aid your professional development and provide you with some of the essential skills of a successful commercial lawyer.

As well as gaining fantastic experience, you'll also be paid reasonably for your time on the vacation scheme.

In order to be eligible, you must be able to start a training contract if offered. Therefore we only accept applications from penultimate year law students, final year non-law students and graduates from all disciplines. 

The deadline to apply is 23 December 2024.

At DWF, we use our values to help define and reinforce our culture and to enable us to recruit, retain and develop the highest quality people. This is reflected in our training contract, where our future trainees are made to feel part of the DWF team from the moment of offer. Once within the business, our trainees get a high level of responsibility in terms of legal work and exposure to business development and CSR. There are opportunities to learn from leading legal, technical and sector experts, and all our trainees are supported to go beyond their full potential with a range of training, practical day-to-day working and in-house learning and workshops. Many of our trainees also have the opportunity to complete a client secondment.

We will assess vacation scheme candidates for our 2026 training contract.

DWF introduced the Solictors Qualifying Exam (SQE) in 2022 and this will be our preferred option for candidates who are yet to complete the Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the point of offer. 

We will continue to accept applications from candidates who have already commenced or completed the LPC while the legal profession transitions to the SQE. No set end date has been confirmed at this time. 

Solicitor apprenticeship 2025. Deadline date is 23 December 2024.

At DWF, we are proud of our reputation as a supportive and inclusive employer. We aim to be an employer of choice to talent across generations and life stages by providing interventions that advance social inclusion and enable our colleagues to balance their work lives while providing the development opportunities to enjoy fulfilling and rewarding careers. As a responsible business and force for good in society, we embed our culture and values at the heart of everything we do, recognising that our people not only want a great place to work, but take pride in creating it.

Our global diversity and inclusion leadership group defines and executes our diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy. Executive sponsors and more than 50 senior leaders, supported by our affinity networks and network of passionate diversity champions, deliver action plans in support of our new five year D&I strategy which focuses on gender, race and ethnicity, LGBT+, disability, mental health.

Colleague networks strengthen our efforts to build and sustain a diverse and inclusive workplace. They bring colleagues together through events to raise awareness and understanding, often collaborating with our clients. The networks include: Out Front – our company wide LGBT+ network, This is Me – our gender network and our race and ethnicity network – focused on increasing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation and promoting cultural diversity across the business.

There’s a plethora of initiatives that demonstrate this, most notably our ethnic minority programme, launched in 2022. This programme is designed to empower individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds by offering tailored mentoring, skills sessions, ahead of two weeks of paid work experience, providing them with the tools and insights needed to thrive in the legal field. We also look at your academics in the context that you gained them using REALrating.

Building on this success and recognising the importance of intersectionality, we also introduced our social mobility programme last year, extending these opportunities to individuals from a wider range of diverse backgrounds.

Both programmes form part of our training contract recruitment and really does exemplify the work we’re doing to increase diversity in the legal industry.

DWF sponsors the SQE (England), Diploma of Professional Legal Practice fees (Scotland) and the Institute of Professional Legal Studies fees (Northern Ireland). 

We also offer further financial sponsorship which differs by location. 

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