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Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms, offering local and global clients expert advice on all aspects of commercial law. The firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across five continents and seven practice areas.
As a trainee at Clifford Chance you will undertake seats in at least four of these practice areas. Three of your seats will be in our core areas of Finance, Corporate and Capital Markets. One seat could be an international secondment, client secondment or split seat. You will therefore gain wide exposure to our business which will allow you to determine which area you would like to qualify into as an England & Wales qualified lawyer.
Responsibilities
Clifford Chance IGNITE is a Training Contract with a rare emphasis on tech. A new route that’ll take you into some of the world’s most innovative learning environments. It's still a Clifford Chance training contract, with the built in time and space to develop new skills and solutions. To reconsider what tech can do for law. To redesign and streamline the way we operate. And redefine how we deliver the best results for our clients. No other leading law firm offers anything like it.
Whilst your experience on each seat will be very different, in all of them you will develop your legal and business skills, gain insight into our high profile clients and enhance your commercial awareness. The tasks you undertake could include: drafting and proofing documents, conducting due diligence on a client's acquisition target, attending client meetings, preparing documents for a court hearing, researching titles and leases on a real estate portfolio or creating a data room ahead of a major transaction. You may even run some smaller transactions for our clients.
Underpinning this exposure to the best work available, you will receive learning and development support from the Clifford Chance Academy, arguably the legal sector's leading in-house learning and development facility. At the start of each seat you will receive specialised training in that sector and a dedicated supervisor.
Throughout your Training Contract, you will be closely supported, both informally and through formal mentoring, by the graduate development team, legal support manager and your monitoring partner.
Experience and skills
Whilst you do not need to have prior legal experience or a law degree to apply to us, we expect our trainees to be problem-solvers with strong communication skills and commercial acumen. Applicants to Clifford Chance IGNITE might have studied computer science. Or taught themselves to code in the evenings. Or be developing an app on the side of their law degree. The only thing you must have is an excitement for what the meeting of law and tech can spark.
The competencies that we look for in our trainees include:
- Business awareness
- Leading and managing
- Problem solving with commercial insight
- Relationship building and networking
- Strong communication skills (oral and written)
- Ability to identify legal vs business issues
Our Training Contract is open to law and non-law students.
If you have not studied a law degree you will be need to complete a Graduate Diploma in Law (or equivalent) prior to joining us as a trainee. All future trainees will also need to complete a LLM Commercial Legal Practice (or equivalent) prior to starting their Training Contract.
If you are a Scots or Irish law student or graduate you may be required to complete elements of the GDL (or equivalent) prior to joining us as a trainee.
The GDL and LLM CLP (or equivalent) are funded by Clifford Chance and we will provide a maintenance grant to use during your studies.
Eligibility
You are only able to make one application to a Scheme/role (Training Contract 2023 OR Training Contract 2024 OR Middle East Training Contract OR Clifford Chance IGNITE OR SPARK). Multiple applications will not be considered.
Please be aware that we will only review your application form. If you upload your CV, this will pre-populate some of your application however your CV will not be reviewed.
Please do NOT upload a covering letter as this will not be reviewed.
Application process
Applications open on 6th August 2021 and close at midnight on 9th December 2021. We do not recruit on a rolling basis and we do not review applications until after the deadline has passed. We will only review the information you provide when you submit your application - any changes after this will not be considered so do NOT amend your application once it has been submitted.
Shortly after submitting your application, you will receive an email from us asking you to complete an online Watson Glaser critical reasoning assessment. This takes approximately 30 minutes and should be completed within 5 days of receiving our email with instructions.
The assessment days for Clifford Chance IGNITE will take place in London the week commencing 24th January 2022.
