By 
Clifford Chance
London
England
2020-10-27T06:24:03Z
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Clifford Chance – where curious minds meet
Are you someone who delves into minute details? Do you ask ‘too many’ questions? Have you ever been told that you ‘think too much’?
At Clifford Chance, that makes you one of us. We’re a world-leading law firm, because we’ve never stopped being curious.
That’s why infamous local and global names come to us for expert advice on all aspects of commercial law. We have an unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across five continents and seven practice areas. Plenty to keep your curiosity fed.
What does the role look like?
You’ll start on seats in at least four 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’ll get wide exposure to our business, which will not only give you an exemplary knowledge of all things commercial law. It will also help you decide which area you would like to qualify into as an England and Wales qualified lawyer.
Your 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 a Clifford Chance Training Contract, but it had extra 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.
Your tasks 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.
You’ll be exposed to the best work available, plus you’ll be mentored by seasoned experts at the Clifford Chance Academy. Which is arguably the legal sector’s leading in-house learning and development facility.
At the start of each seat you’ll receive specialised training in that sector and a dedicated supervisor.
Throughout your Training Contract, you’ll be closely supported, day-to-day and in regular scheduled check-ins with mentors, by the Graduate Development Team, Legal Support Manager and your monitoring partner.
Experience and skills
You don’t need to have prior legal experience or a Law degree to apply. But we expect our trainees to be problem-solvers with strong communication skills and commercial acumen.
You might have studied computer science. Or taught yourself to code in the evenings. Or be developing an app on the side of your law degree. The only thing you must have is an excitement for what the meeting of law and tech can spark.
Our trainees must have:
- Business awareness
- Leading and managing skills
- The ability to problem-solve with commercial insight
- Relationship building and networking skills
- 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 haven’t studied a qualifying law degree (as specified by the SRA) then you’ll need to complete a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) prior to joining us as a trainee.
All future trainees will complete an LLM Commercial Legal Practice (LLM CLP) prior to starting their Training Contract. Both the GDL and LLM CLP are funded by Clifford Chance and we will provide a maintenance grant to use during your studies.
Application process
Applications open on 3 rd August 2020 and close at midnight on 10 th December 2020. We do not recruit on a rolling basis and we do not review applications until after the deadline has passed.
Shortly after submitting your application, you’ll 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 virtually week commencing 8 th February 2021.
Find out more about us and the opportunities we offer on our website.
