Weekly Newsletter #23

Career opportunities spotted this week

📍 Work experience, insight days, grants & placement opportunities

⭐ Inclusie's pick of the week ⭐️

🎬 NBCUniversal (London)
Looking for work experience or a placement year? Film, TV and streaming meet commercial law in NBCUniversal’s 12-month Legal Internship, with exposure to everything from content production to intellectual property and compliance.

We love that it offers a full year inside the in-house legal team of a global media business, which is rare at this stage of a legal career and makes a brilliant talking point in future applications.

Apply ASAP!

🤝 10,000 Black Interns (Nationwide)
The programme offers paid internships across 35+ sectors, including private practice and in-house law, plus training, 1:1 mentoring and application support. You can apply for up to three workstreams before the 1st November deadline.

🌉 Bridging the Bar (London)
Bridging the Bar’s year-long Academy supports 100 aspiring barristers from underrepresented backgrounds with mentoring, advocacy and interview training, mini-pupillages and access to paid legal internships. If you’re serious about the Bar but don’t have the contacts, this is a great place to start. Applications for the 2027/28 Academy close on 5th November.

📣 Muckle LLP (Newcastle)
This informal evening at Muckle’s Newcastle office is a chance to chat with current trainees, meet the Graduate Recruitment team and pick up practical tips before applying for a training contract. It takes place on 10th November, 5–6.30pm, and is open to you whether you’re just exploring or ready to apply. Make sure to book your place!

✍️ Irwin Mitchell (Virtual)
Here’s a chance to raise your profile in public law before you’ve even qualified. Irwin Mitchell’s Andrew Lockley Public Law Essay Competition is open to law students, graduates, trainees and paralegals, and this year’s question tackles school exclusions and access to justice. Deadline: 2nd November.

💚 Bates Wells (London)
Bates Wells, known for its charity work and B Corp status, has opened applications for its 2027 Summer Vacation Scheme. Taking part means you’re automatically considered for a training contract. Deadline: 4th January 2027.

🔍 Wilkes (Birmingham)
Many of Wilkes’ current trainees attended an Insight Day before applying, where you’ll shadow a trainee, hear more about the firm and work in a group to deliver a short presentation to Wilkes’ lawyers. Insight days run on 10th and 11th February and 28th and 29th April 2027. Deadline: 29th January 2027.

🏰 Disney (London)
Not a legal placement, but a great alternative for building commercial awareness and gaining professional experience. Disney’s 12-month UK Internship Programme, starting in summer 2027, is open to undergraduates at UK or Irish universities who would be returning to study in autumn 2028. Applications open on 13th October and close after just one week for most roles, so it’s worth working on your application now.

💼 Trainee, Apprenticeship & Pupillage Roles

🏘️ Anthony Collins (Birmingham)
More than 90% of this B Corp firm’s work helps improve lives and communities across sectors like social housing, local government and charities. Applications for their 2028 and 2029 training contracts have just opened.

⚖️ Ministry of Justice (separate links for Maidstone & London)
Ever wondered what the legal advice behind a magistrate’s judgment looks like? As a Trainee Legal Adviser at HMCTS, you’d advise magistrates on law, practice and procedure and draft the reasoning behind their decisions, giving impartial advice rather than acting for a client. You’ll need to have passed the academic stage of qualifying as a solicitor or barrister, or be a CILEX Fellow or CILEX Lawyer, and you’ll need to observe a magistrates’ court before the interview. Deadline: 21st October.

🌱 Bates Wells (London)
You don’t need a degree to qualify as a solicitor at Bates Wells. Its six-year Solicitor Apprenticeship covers your fees and leads to qualification, with the final two years spent alongside the graduate trainees. There’s also an open evening on 26th November if you’d like to find out more first. Deadline: 4th January 2027.

🗒️ Paralegal & Entry Level Roles

🏠 TWM Solicitors (Guildford)
A close second for pick of the week… I love to see firms explicitly looking for hospitality, retail or clerical experience and this is one of those opportunities. TWM Solicitors is hiring for a full-time Legal Assistant role in its Lending team. They’re looking for a dynamic and open-minded approach to work, a sense of fun and a strong team ethic. Pitched as a chance to start your career in law, you’ll support one of three micro teams covering client onboarding, completions or post-completion registrations. Just GCSEs required for this one. Apply ASAP.

🏺 Weightmans (Liverpool)
Weightmans’ Private Wealth team is hiring a permanent Paralegal to support solicitors on complex probate and estate planning work, with the chance to run a small caseload under supervision. Experience isn’t essential. A good one to consider if wills, trusts and estates interest you. Apply ASAP.

🏛️ HM Treasury (London/Darlington)
Not every legally minded graduate wants to practise law, and HM Treasury’s three-year 2027 Graduate Policy Programme is a strong alternative. It’s open to any degree discipline and builds your skills in research, analysis and communicating complex ideas as a Policy Adviser. Deadline: 5th November.

👨👩👧 4PB (London)
Seven former Legal Assistants at 4PB have gone on to secure pupillage and tenancy since 2019, making this a brilliant stepping stone for aspiring family barristers. You’d support barristers with research and written advocacy at one of the largest family law chambers in England and Wales. You will need at least a year’s legal experience plus the BPC for this one. Deadline: 2nd November.

🏘️ Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (London)
Their Social Care & Education Legal Team is hiring a Paralegal to support internal lawyers with research, drafting and court bundles on cases protecting vulnerable residents, with structured training and mentoring along the way. You’ll need a law degree, a CILEX or Level 2 legal studies qualification, or a non-law degree with some practical legal experience. Apply ASAP.

🗄️ DLA Piper (Leeds)
Legal tech is changing how big firms work, and DLA Piper’s Legal Delivery Centre is at the heart of it. Its Paralegals support document-heavy contentious, transactional and real estate work using innovative tools, alongside colleagues in the UK, Australia and Germany. You’ll need a law degree or conversion course (completed or nearly there). Apply ASAP.

📑 Birketts (Cambridge)
This role combines employment and regulatory law. Birketts’ Employment team needs a Paralegal to manage its work for a large professional regulatory body, preparing decision documents and legal advice for professional conduct hearings and supporting tribunal work too. A law degree is ideal, training is provided and the role is fully office-based. Apply ASAP.

🛡️ Eventum Legal (Manchester)
Eventum Legal specialises in complex and sensitive criminal defence work, particularly sexual offence and domestic abuse allegations, and it’s growing again with Graduate Paralegal and Legal Administrator roles. The LinkedIn post doesn’t make clear whether previous legal experience is needed for the paralegal role, so it’s worth dropping them a message or emailing your CV. Apply ASAP.

🦋 Bindmans (London)
Bindmans’ top-ranked Court of Protection team is hiring a Paralegal to support its lawyers on mental capacity, health and welfare cases, including attending hearings in the High Court and the Court of Protection. Experience appears to be desirable but not essential and the advert suggests that the role could lead to a training contract. Deadline: 16th October.

📈 Howes Percival (Norwich)
Curious about the business side of law? Howes Percival is hiring a Business Development & Marketing Executive on an 18-month fixed-term contract to run events, prepare pitches and tenders and promote the firm on social media. Business development experience is required, but that can come from places like working in a shop if you use the right examples (think building customer relationships or hitting sales targets). You’ll also need a full driving licence for this one. Apply ASAP.

Your questions answered

Q: What actually makes working in-house different from private practice?

Career changer

My response: It’s a great question (this one actually came via our Tiktok), although it is hard to answer as every in-house team is different. I’ve worked in a range of companies, from Barclays, which has hundreds if not thousands of in-house lawyers, to a tiny start-up where I was the only lawyer, and each of those had its own benefits and challenges.

That said, there are a few things that generally set in-house roles apart:

🚀 Variety

In-house teams are often smaller; there’s likely to be a wider variety of work and more responsibility. I often start on a Monday morning with no idea what’s coming across my desk that day. It could be issues relating to data privacy, employment, contracts, litigation or something else entirely. We also often get involved in non-legal work, from compliance to HR to ESG. If you’re someone who is excited by the prospect of rolling up your sleeves early on and having a go, that’s a good sign it could be for you.

🤝 You’re part of the business

In private practice, you advise lots of different businesses. In-house, you have one client, but requests come in from lots of different teams. You often sit alongside the people you’re advising, whether that’s sales, HR, finance or the leadership team. You’ll get to know them well, and they’ll get to know you. Building and maintaining relationships matters a lot here.

📋 Juggling and prioritisation

It’s not unusual to have a very long to-do list. A quick question about a supplier contract, a data protection query, a board paper, a dispute that’s just landed. You’ll learn to shift focus quickly and decide what really needs doing first. If you’re someone who would much rather focus on one project for weeks at a time, private practice may suit you better.

💼 A different kind of commercial awareness

At a firm, commercial awareness often means an understanding across lots of sectors, companies and market trends. In-house, it’s about knowing one business really, really well. How does it make money? What are its biggest risks? What keeps the CEO up at night? Your legal advice is only useful if it helps the business get where it’s trying to go.

💷 You’re not a fee earner

This is a big mindset shift. Law firms make money by billing clients for their time. In-house teams don’t bring in revenue directly, so you won’t be recording billable hours. Instead, your value comes from protecting the business, helping it move forwards and saving money on external lawyers. Being practical and efficient really counts.

✨ The takeaway

Neither route is better, but if you like variety, being close to the action and seeing the real impact of your advice, in-house could be a great fit for you. I post about as many in-house opportunities as I spot, but I’d love to see more in-house work experience schemes to allow aspiring legal professionals to get a real feel for the day-to-day.

5 minutes with… Justin Wills on the Government Legal Professional Diversity Scheme Story page

Justin and I have been in touch for a while - he was one of the first people I shared a draft Inclusie newsletter with and, more recently, he kindly agreed to write a piece on his time on the GLP Diversity Summer Scheme. I think it’s an inspiring and interesting read wherever you are in your legal journey. Enjoy!

Introduction

For aspiring legal professionals, the most visible route into law often looks like a straight line: get onto a vacation scheme and, hopefully, convert it into a training contract; yet it is far from the only path to eventual qualification.

One of the best things about building a legal career is that it can really be tailored around the working life that suits you and your aspirations, but it’s easy to slip into the silo of the traditional pathway without considering the alternatives available out there.

The Government Legal Profession (GLP) Diversity Summer Scheme gives aspiring lawyers a chance to explore one of those less visible routes. Running for a week in person or two days virtually, it offers people from backgrounds underrepresented in law a close-up view of government legal work. Each participant is assigned a buddy who works for the GLP, who you connect with on the last few days on the scheme to join them in their team.

The GLP is the professional community connecting thousands of lawyers across government. It includes the Government Legal Department (GLD), the government’s principal legal adviser and largest provider of legal services. The scheme places participants inside this vast organisation to tackle exercises modelled on trainee work, learn about what its many teams do on a daily basis and provides an opportunity to network with GLP colleagues across different disciplines. It also focuses on developing the individual behind the aspiring lawyer, building professional confidence and providing an understanding of how to thrive as a GLD trainee.

Reflecting the GLP’s desire to represent the communities it serves, the in-person scheme is held in Bristol, Leeds, London and Manchester (I joined the London cohort which is led by Mellissa Akinya). The experience leaves you far better equipped to put forward a stronger, better-informed application for the GLD’s entry-level opportunities, such as their Legal Trainee Scheme, should you come away thinking that working within government law is for you.

The Scheme

Day one was a rather eventful one, coinciding with Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister. Despite the inevitable disruption as a result, Treasury Solicitor and GLD Permanent Secretary Doug Wilson KC (Hon) still made time to speak to us as scheduled. Asked later what he hoped participants would gain, he summed up the scheme’s purpose to me as follows:

“I think that knowing what’s out there and being able to try and make the most informed choices you can, is what we’re hoping to help you get.”

Doug Wilson KC (Hon)

The rest of the week did exactly that, providing a very clear sense of what a government legal career actually involves.

An example of the practical exercises undertaken involved reviewing amendments from government departments to a fictional bill restricting junk-food advertising near schools. In groups, we decided which could fit within the bill and suggested alternatives. This required us to grasp the brief quickly and negotiate, much as GLD lawyers do daily.

Their stories made the distance between aspiration and reality feel much smaller, and reminded me that setbacks do not close the door, no matter how many there are. That sense of possibility was reinforced by my conversations with senior GLD colleagues, making clear that they want trainees to feel they belong and have the support to learn and do their best work.

Interested in applying?

My biggest tip is to follow current affairs and government news with the GLD in mind and explore the department’s website and publications. Understanding how the GLD fits into government, alongside its goals and wider vision, will strengthen your application. That preparation will also mean less time decoding the basics when you arrive and more time asking questions that get beneath the surface.

If you’re offered a place, build a rapport with your buddy over email and ask which areas of law their team works in. Use their answer to guide some targeted research before your placement days. That level of preparation will help you develop more astute insights and get far more from the experience, which is how you'll stand out.

Make time to connect with people too; those conversations can broaden your understanding of the GLD, and the relationships you build may become a valuable source of support when preparing the best possible application to their Legal Trainee Scheme. For example, mentioning my interest in intellectual property (IP) law in one conversation led to an illuminating discussion with another GLD colleague who was attending the scheme and worked specifically on IP matters.

The GLP Diversity Summer Scheme will not fast-track you into the department, but it offers a rare first-hand view of government legal work and can help you picture a career within it. To me, it’s a shining example of widening access to the profession done properly, and is one that more legal employers should follow.

Thank you so much, Justin! You can follow him on LinkedIn here. Details of the 2027 GLP Diversity Scheme haven’t yet been published but we’ll keep an eye out.

This week’s career tip

Please don’t feel you need to fill your applications with complex language. In fact, it can actually take away from your writing and your story. Being able to explain complex topics in simple, clear language is also one of the key skills of a legal professional, so it’s worth practising now.

Try this: read a paragraph of your application out loud. If you wouldn’t say it that way to an interview setting, consider a rewrite.

Finally, can you do us a favour? 

If you’re enjoying this newsletter and you’re at college, university or law school, we’d love you to share it with your careers team this week. We want to work with more careers professionals to show them how Inclusie can support their students. The more people who join the club, the more free resources we can provide. Thank you as always for your support.

That’s all for now. See you next week!

Emma

The careers advice shared in this newsletter is intended as general guidance and should not be treated as formal legal or recruitment advice. I do my best to keep all opportunities and deadlines accurate and up-to-date at the time of writing, but always double-check the employer’s website before applying.