Training Contracts

We do not operate on the traditional basis of "seats", where trainees spend six months in a particular department until they just about know what they are doing and then move to another department.  We have never understood why firms do that. It is a recipe for stress, inefficiency and poor client care. It means that a trainee spends the first two to three months of each seat finding their feet, reading into existing files and getting to know the law, the client and the facts of their cases. That isn't a good way to learn. Firms instinctively recognise that and they also see that it isn't good for clients. So they resolve the problems by restricting trainees to largely menial tasks where they can't do too much harm. But what use is that to you?

Our approach is very different and, in our view, it is based on common sense. You begin with personal injury. You spend a few weeks with no case load, just helping other staff with their case loads, i.e. ringing clients, taking witness statements, instructing medical experts, valuing injuries, calculating special damages etc. That way you pick up some skills.

Then we start to give you some new files, one at a time, every few days. That gives you time to build your own case load at a pace you can handle safely and without compromising on client care.

You restrict yourself to personal injury for most of the first year, i.e. the year spent as a paralegal. You keep all your own files and you don't move around or swap caseloads with anybody.

During that first year you will learn a lot about the law and procedure for PI files but you will also learn skills that will benefit you in any other department i.e: interviewing, statement writing, letter writing, drafting, telephone use, negotiation, client handling and logical thinking.

By the end of that year we aim to have changed you from a member of the public into a fledgling lawyer. Instead of seeing a mass of facts swirling around, you will have started to learn how to focus like a laser on the few key facts amongst all the details. You will assemble them rapidly and decide whether you can prove a duty, a breach, causation and loss and what evidence you need.

Then, once you have those basic skills and have started to think like a lawyer instead of like a member of the public, you are ready to start some other areas of law.

We do this by adding new types of files.  You keep your PI caseload and run them all to the very end, but you will add employment tribunal files. That would continue for about six months but all the employment cases you take on you would keep until they finish.

Later you would begin to add clinical negligence files and, likewise, you would keep them until they finish.

Finally you would add conveyancing files. What you will find, as you begin to take on each new type of file, is that it gets easier. It also gets quicker to pick up the new work type. That's because your general skills are increasing and the only challenge is the new type of law and procedure.