Your future. Our support.
Our vacation schemes are your opportunity to live life as a trainee. Join us on the Herbert Smith Freehills summer vacation scheme and get your career started today.
Explore our firm for yourself, build your connections and find out what lawyer you want to become with real investment in you and your growth from leading lawyers.
Who are Herbert Smith Freehills?
At Herbert Smith Freehills, we align your growth and ambition with ours. We invest in your personal and professional growth and support you to achieve your ambition. And you share responsibility for playing a part in delivering the firm’s growth and ambition too.
We’re excited about the future and you’ll help us build something even better than we have today. Our training is tailored and meaningful. We’ll ask you to be open to the experience and what's required. You’ll discover what sort of lawyer you want to be and become an excellent one.
A leading international law firm, we’re recognised leaders in demanding contentious matters, exacting regulatory work and complex public and private transactions. From the outset, you’ll work with respected colleagues on high-quality matters and your experience will help you grow an international perspective.
Your benefits
- £500 per week salary
- Trainee buddy to support you
What you’ll be doing
Our vacation schemes immerse you in our work, networks and the international world of law, so you can find out whether life at the firm is for you.
You will
- Work directly with a partner or senior associate, delivering real work for real clients
- Attend workshops and presentations covering all practice areas
- Be invited to various networking events with partners, associates and trainees.
What we look for
Our summer vacation schemes are open to penultimate-year students, finalists and graduates.
We consider applicants from any degree discipline, with a keen interest in commercial law. We do look for consistent 2:1s throughout all your undergraduate modules. If you have mitigating circumstances that impacted your studies, we would urge you to mention these on your application form.
Key dates
- Schemes run: 9 – 27 June and 7 – 25 July 2025
- Apply between: 1 September – 1 December 2024
- Assessment centres: January – March 2025 (open to penultimate-year students, finalists and graduates)
We only recruit our future trainee associates from our vacation schemes, and to be eligible for the schemes, you must be a graduate or in your penultimate or final year at university. When making our decision, we look at assessments made by supervisors and an assessed piece of work in each of the two seats of your choosing. It’s really important to us that you have the combination of skills and potential that we’re looking for, so you can get the ball rolling from day one when you start your career here.
The scheme doesn’t just equip you to be an excellent lawyer and discover what sort of lawyer you want to be, it also gives you the chance to see what Life@HSF is really like. So make the most of this opportunity.
For those who are unable to attend a vacation scheme, please get in touch with the graduate recruitment team at earlycareers.uk@hsf.com to discuss your individual circumstances, which we will consider on a case-by-case basis.