DWF is a leading global provider of integrated legal and business services, operating across eight key sectors in over 30 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. So we’ve listened to our clients and designed a range of services to meet these needs.

Our vision is to deliver integrated legal and business services on a global scale through our three offerings; legal advisory, Mindcrest and connected services. Our ability to seamlessly combine any number of these services to deliver bespoke solutions for our clients is our key differentiator. This Integrated Legal Management approach delivers greater operational 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 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 Sunday 15 January 2023.

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.

The deadline to apply for a training contract commencing in 2025 is Sunday 25 June 2023. We also have vacancies for earlier start dates in some locations. 

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. 

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.

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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