About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the world's largest law firms, supporting businesses across the world with their commercial legal needs. We now have 4,200 lawyers working in over 70 offices in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and the US. In the UK we have a national presence with offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield. Our vision is to be the leading global business law firm, delivering quality value-added services to our clients, who include some of the world's leading businesses, governments, banks and financial institutions.
Our success depends on our most important asset - our people. Our progressive approach to recruitment creates a mix of talents that contribute to our success and our rankings in the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers and the Guardian 300 demonstrate our commitment to providing our trainees with the most well-rounded training experience.
DLA Piper is committed to making sure you feel part of the firm once you accept a training contract with us. Our future trainees have access to our online portal, 'Inside DLA Piper', where they can contact one another via chat forums and are kept up to date with what is going on in the firm with access from wherever they are in the world.
The wider community
DLA Piper has an extensive CSR programme to support local communities around each office including pro bono work as well as educational and environmental projects.
Main areas of work
Corporate; Employment, Pensions and Benefits; Finance and Projects; Intellectual Property and Technology; Litigation and Regulatory; Real Estate and Restructuring.
Your training
Following a comprehensive residential induction, trainees complete four six-month seats during the course of their training contract. Trainees are given an opportunity to express what areas they would like to experience during the training contracts. You may also have the opportunity to do a seat abroad, or a client secondment. If you want responsibility, you will be given as much as you can handle and your progress will be monitored through regular performance reviews and feedback. The compulsory Professional Skills Course is run in-house and is tailored to meet the needs of the trainees. This, combined with on-the-job experience, provides trainees with an excellent grounding on which to build their professional careers.
Who should apply
DLA Piper will have approximately 170 places on our summer scheme in 2012 and 90 vacancies for training contracts commencing in 2014. We welcome applications from students from all degree disciplines who have a minimum of ABB at A Level (or equivalent) and expect, or have achieved, a 2.1 degree classification - however we do not just look for a strong academic background. We seek enthusiastic and committed individuals, whose good communication and analytical skills enable them to deal with the intellectual challenges of the job. We do not want clones and therefore consider every application on its own merits. Each trainee is valued, each intake is diverse, so it is up to you to show us what makes them a well-rounded applicant.
For further information please visit www.dlapipergraduates.co.uk or follow us on Facebook.