Freeths is a national law firm. Tracing its origins in the East Midlands back to 1810, the firm has in recent years pursued a dynamic strategy of becoming a pre-eminent regional law firm, with successful offices now established in Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Oxford and Sheffield. While Freeths is a heavyweight commercial firm, serving a wide variety of corporate and institutional clients, there is also a strong commitment to a broad range of legal services, which includes a substantial private client element. This enables us to give a breadth of experience in training which is not always available in firms of a similar size.

Types of work

The firm covers a wide range of work and is organised into four divisions: real estate and construction, commercial services, private client and personal litigation.

To find out what it is like to work at Freeths LLP read the firm's Meet the Lawyer profile.

We offer work experience placements at the end of the spring term, during the summer holidays and in the autumn half term. Opportunities will be advertised through our website careers page as they become available and should be applied for directly through our website.

Our legal assistant programme allows you to gain grass roots experience of working in a legal environment alongside our talented lawyers. You will provide a combination of administrative and legal support to trainees, lawyers and partners, which means that you get a true picture of what a career in law could offer you in the long term. We are looking for outstanding legal assistants with excellent academics, first class organisation, with the ability to build lasting relationships and have a flexible and can-do attitude to contribute and succeed with us.

Legal assistant positions are initially for six months. We review performance at three monthly intervals; at the six-month mark we are assessing performance and attitude with a view to offering a second six month contract. At the nine-month stage, we make a decision on whether to offer funding for the Solicitor Qualifying Examinations and a further contract to enable you to complete your Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) and this will be delivered through a graduate level apprenticeship.

Successful legal assistants will then enrol onto the graduate apprenticeship and this means starting the formal training. This will involve working at Freeths four days a week and studying one day a week at the University of Law to prepare for and take the SQE1 and SQE2. You will have the option to make the apprenticeship up to a masters qualification. The apprenticeship will last 25 months and during that period, you will rotate seats in different areas of law whilst completing your QWE.

Once you have completed our graduate apprenticeship and passed your exams you will be ready to qualify!

We offer funding for the Solicitor Qualifying Examinations.

Freeths are committed to giving everyone an opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, disability, religion or belief, age, social background or part-time status. We are proud to be as diverse as our clients.

We believe that our inclusive attitude and eagerness to try new things gives us an edge in the legal field. For example, we pick our trainees and graduates based on their talent rather than the name of their university. From finding innovative ways of working to building trust in our varied clients, diversity underpins our success. Our aim is to attract, develop and retain the brightest lawyers in the UK from many walks of life.

We offer funding for the Solicitor Qualifying Examinations.

• Commercial litigation
• Employment
• Family
• Real estate
• Real estate litigation
• Commercial
• Corporate
• Drinks
• Hospitality
• Leisure
• Clinical negligence
• Personal injury
• Private client
• Construction

• General Commercial
• General Practice
• Corporate & Commercial

• Birmingham
• Bristol
• Derby
• Leeds
• Leicester
• Liverpool
• London
• Manchester
• Milton Keynes
• Nottingham
• Oxford
• Sheffield

• Business in the Community

• Access Aspirations
• BITC
• Black Lawyers’ Directory
• Black Solicitors Network
• IntoUniversity
• Law Society Social Mobility Ambassadors Scheme
• Legal Apprenticeships
• Pathways to Law
• Rare Recruitment
• Stonewall
• Working Families