Your Growth. Our Ambition.
When you join the Trainee Associate Programme at Herbert Smith Freehills, you’ll work on high-profile cases, network with prestigious clients, and undergo specialist knowledge, skills and mindset training, all part of a collaborative team. With fantastic benefits and support networks designed to help trainees from a diverse range of backgrounds, you’ll have everything you need to get your new career started here.
We’re renowned for our culture. Being human, bold and outstanding are more than our values, they’re our lived experience. We know that by providing the right level of care, excitement, challenge, and learning, we can help our employees to grow and define our success as a firm. That's why we've kept our values front of mind when designing our Trainee Associate Programme.
We only recruit our future trainees from our Vacation Schemes where students are assessed by their supervisors and given an assessed piece of work across their chosen two seats. We look at a combination of these assessments when making offers on our Trainee Associate Programme.
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
- £56k-£135k salary
- 25 days’ annual leave
- Cycle to work scheme
- Medical, dental, travel and gadget insurance
- Subsidised gym membership
- Pension contributions from Herbert Smith Freehills
- Interest-free season ticket loan
- Corporate discounts
Why join us?
Diverse
As well as ensuring we recruit from a range of backgrounds, we take a roughly equal split of law and non-law students. We value diverse perspectives and embrace difference so we can develop creative solutions to our clients’ problems.
Challenging
We created the Trainee Associate Programme to ensure our trainee associates are given the best opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills needed to become a successful lawyer. Through our Business Skills Academy, trainee associates will undertake structured learning and development, from interactive workshops to Professional Skills Course training.
A partner will mentor you as you progress through your training contract, and in each seat, you’ll share your office with either a senior associate or a partner who will support your personal and professional development.
Progressive
Our Trainee Business Development Committee (TBDC) is a trainee-run initiative that empowers trainees to contribute to our business development strategies through networking with clients, allowing you to build business development and client relationship skills.
You’ll be able to submit seat preferences before every rotation, tailoring your training contract to your specific interests. You can also discuss your preferences with our dedicated trainee HR team.
International
We provide an international experience, including opportunities to undertake a client or an international secondment.
How do I apply?
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 a selection of skills and potential that we’re looking for to make your career start a little smoother, but we will be there to support you in expanding these skills every step of the way.
For those who are unable to attend a vacation scheme, please get in touch with the graduate recruitment team earlycareers.uk@hsf.com to discuss your individual circumstances, which we will consider on a case-by-case basis.
Entry criteria
Must complete HSF Vacation Scheme and receive an offer for a Trainee Associate Programme.