Weekly Newsletter #20

Here’s what to expect this week…

This week’s newsletter is kindly sponsored by Nomio. Partnerships like this help us keep our newsletter and resources free.

📍 Work experience, insight days & placement opportunities

🎓 St Ives Chambers (Birmingham)
To celebrate Black History Month, St Ives Chambers is hosting an in-person CV Workshop and Careers Event, with HHJ Lubega (a Circuit Judge on the Midlands Circuit) as keynote speaker. Attendees get 1-to-1 CV advice, career guidance and networking in an informal setting. Spaces are limited and allocated first come, first served. Date: 2nd October, 6-8.30pm.

🌍 Squire Patton Boggs (Various)
Open day applications are now open. The day is full of opportunities to better understand their practice areas, meet individuals that work at the firm and learn more about their opportunities. There’s various in person days as well as a virtual option. Deadline: 12th October.

🎤 7 King's Bench Walk (Virtual)
Thinking about the Bar? 7KBW is running two virtual open evenings this autumn, including an event focused specifically on opportunities for people from underrepresented groups and another where prospective pupils can meet members of Chambers and ask questions about pupillage. A good chance to get a feel for life at a specialist commercial and public law set before applying.

🛡️ Counter Terrorism Policing (West London)
Want to try something a little different? If you're an undergraduate looking for a sandwich-year placement, this 12-month opportunity gives you a chance to work on the corporate and resource side of counter-terrorism, supporting the teams that help keep a major national operation running. You'll need to be returning to your degree in autumn 2028 and willing to undergo enhanced security vetting. Deadline: 15th November.

💼  Trainee, Apprenticeship & Pupillage Roles

🌍 Squire Patton Boggs (Various)
Are you based in Birmingham, Leeds, London or Manchester and looking for a 2029 Training Contract? Applications have just opened at this global law firm who provide a unique six-seat training contract. Plenty of time to apply for this one (if you’re planning to attend an open day, you might want to do that first to have more to talk about)!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Capital Law (Cardiff)
A firm that offers work from ambitious start-ups to global corporations. Capital Law's 2028 Training Contract runs over 2 years, with experience across various areas of law. Open to final year students and graduates alongside those taking the LPC and SQE routes.

⚖️ Bhatia Best Solicitors (Nottingham)
They’re expanding their Criminal Defence Department and are particularly keen to hear from Police Station Accredited Representatives, LPC graduates, and those well advanced towards SQE qualification. You'd get hands-on exposure to Magistrates' and Crown Court work, client care and case preparation, with many of the firm's current solicitors and managers having started out in junior roles just like this one.

📚 THB Solicitors (Essex)
A Trainee Solicitor/Paralegal position is available in their highly regarded Private Client team, supporting estate administration, Probate Registry work and general file progression. While private client experience is desirable, it's not essential, with full training provided for the right candidate keen on qualification and development. Apply with CV and cover letter.

🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Suffolk County Council (Ipswich)
Another role in the public sector, offering varied, meaningful work with real impact, backed by proper training and a close-knit team. You'd be a Paralegal for the Children's Safeguarding Team, supporting care proceedings, preparing court bundles, and liaising directly with the Family Court and children's services. No prior experience required. Deadline: 28th September.

🎾 International Tennis Integrity Agency (South West London)
A fan of tennis? ITIA is hiring a Paralegal and Case Manager for their in-house legal team, combining data protection, GDPR and contracts work with case management support. Some experience is required, worth reading through the full description. Deadline: 2nd October.

📚 Lancashire County Council (Preston)
This Paralegal Officer role has you supporting teams in Adult Social Care and Education and Employment. Prior experience in a legal environment is required, but this could be a great next step while delivering meaningful services and making a real difference to the community. Deadline: 1st October.

🚔 Watson Woodhouse & Macks Solicitors (Middlesbrough)
Fancy becoming a Criminal Secretary? You'd be drafting documents, taking instructions from clients and organising court bundles. No previous legal experience required, making this a genuinely great entry-level opportunity. Deadline: 30th September.

⚖️ Prettys (Ipswich)
Looking for an opportunity to start your legal career in a supportive law firm? Prettys is hiring a Paralegal for their Employment team, with the role involving research, meeting clients and more. No prior experience required. Apply with CV and cover letter. Apply ASAP.

📋 Thompsons Solicitors (Newcastle/Hybrid)
This Paralegal role has you taking ownership of your own caseload of regulatory and criminal matters, liaising directly with regulators, with guidance and supervision throughout. Some prior experience required for this one. Deadline: 28th September.

🏡 Capsticks LLP (Manchester)
Ever thought about the legal work behind affordable housing? In this role you'd support Registered Providers with everything from site acquisition to funding and future sales, getting stuck into Land Registry searches, SDLT returns, and client-facing casework, in a team known for developing its people. No deadline specified so we’d recommend applying ASAP if of interest.

👓 LegalVision (Manchester)
If intellectual property interests you, this Paralegal role in a Trade Marks team is worth a look. You'll handle trade mark filings, portfolio deadlines, and direct client contact, working with British and international businesses to protect their brand assets. Prior trade mark experience isn't essential, but at least a year of paralegal or admin experience in a legal setting is required. Apply ASAP.

🩺 Fletchers Solicitors (Newcastle / Hybrid)
Ready to build your career in clinical negligence from the ground up? This Paralegal role has you working closely with solicitors on legal research, drafting witness statements and liaising with medical experts and clients, with routes into apprenticeships or training contracts down the line. Prior experience is preferred but not required. Deadline: 9th October.

📁 DAC Beachcroft (Newcastle)
Looking for a role in an Employment, Pensions and Immigration team? You'd get hands-on with disclosure tasks, reviewing and drafting documents, and liaising directly with other paralegals, trainees and lawyers. Previous paralegal experience within an employment team is desirable but not essential, with full training provided. Apply ASAP.

⚕️ DAC Beachcroft (Leeds)
A second DAC Beachcroft role this week, this time in their Health Care and Public Law team. A great option if a career in healthcare specifically appeals to you. Apply ASAP.

📚 Twinkl Educational Publishing (Sheffield)
An in-house Commercial Contracts Specialist role at this well-known EdTech publisher. A great route into in-house work with some great perks. Some prior experience required. Apply ASAP.

⚖️ Bristow & Sutor (Sheffield)
Interested in debt recovery and pre-legal litigation? This Legal Collector role has you negotiating payment arrangements, monitoring overdue accounts, and reviewing debts for legal action, alongside managing case diaries and court applications. Strong IT, problem-solving and communication skills are key. Apply ASAP.

📄 Marstons (Wolverhampton)
Marstons is hiring an in-house Paralegal to prepare and manage high-volume, time-sensitive legal documentation for onboarding and offboarding pub partners. A good fit if you're highly organised, detail-oriented, and comfortable working under pressure. Some prior experience is helpful but not essential. Apply soon.

📖 Michelmores (Various)
Michelmores is hiring a Paralegal for their Family team, advising often on high-profile and complex cases. The role will involve drafting, research, managing files and more. Some prior legal experience is preferred. Apply ASAP.

My response: Congratulations and welcome to in-house life! Here’s a few ideas on what you could do in your first few weeks…

🎯 Get curious about the business
In-house teams exist to support a business, not just to advise on legal points in isolation. Read internal documents to understand a little about how the company operates and what terminology they like to use (e.g. do they refer to their customers as customers, clients, or something else entirely)? If you’re working in a new sector, start building your commercial awareness about the opportunities and risks and your awareness of where the company fits in the bigger picture. Ask questions even if they feel basic (we were all in your shoes once)!

📁 Learn the systems
Every in-house team has its own way of doing things: contract templates, matter management systems, approval workflows and technology. Try to get to grips with these early. Knowing where things live and how requests flow through the different teams makes life easier, especially when you’re given something urgent.

🤝 Build relationships across the business, not just legal
Get an understanding of the different departments in the company and consider introducing yourself to people outside the legal team, e.g. in procurement, commercial, HR, finance, etc. In-house lawyers and paralegals succeed by being trusted partners to the wider business. The earlier you start building those relationships, the easier your job becomes.

✍️ Say yes to the unglamorous tasks
Filing, formatting, chasing signatures, updating trackers. It might not feel like "real" legal work, but doing it well and without complaint builds trust fast. People remember who they can rely on, and that reputation opens doors to more interesting work.

🙋 Ask for feedback early, not just at your review
Don't wait three months to find out how you're doing. A quick "how did that go, anything I should do differently next time?" after a few tasks shows initiative and helps you course-correct if needed.

Most of all, be patient with yourself. In-house work rewards steady reliability over flashy wins, and your first month is about laying the foundations.

They wouldn't let me go into law, so I've done the next best thing: legal tech.

My background is B2B software marketing, and I was previously head of marketing at another startup. At Nomio, I'm Head of Growth, which is broadly about getting our name out there. The best part of the job this year was interviewing 25 in-house lawyers for our report, Ready or Not?, on how legal teams are really using AI.

P.s. if you’re interested in reading the report, you can download it for free here.

Q: For anyone who's never heard of Nomio, how would you explain what you do in a couple of sentences and what problem were you solving when you built it?

We help small in-house legal teams whose signed contracts are scattered across inboxes, shared drives, and old systems. Nomio is the contract repository you never have to set up or maintain: ask anything about any contract your business has ever signed and get an answer you can fully trust in seconds.

The problem is bigger than most people realise. When we asked in-house lawyers (n=85), only 24% could find every signed contract in one place. That means most legal teams are losing hours digging through folders for answers the business needs immediately.

Q: A lot of our readers are interested in in-house legal careers. Given what you've learned about in-house teams working at Nomio, what advice would you give to them?

Two things came through in almost every interview for the report.

First, judgement. As Andy Figgins, General Counsel at Rezolv Energy, put it: "What do your clients pay for? They pay for your judgement." AI will never take that away.

Second, learn the craft before you lean on the tools. Charlotte Taylor-Evans, Group General Counsel at Quanta Group, told us about a newly qualified lawyer who used AI to mark up an NDA in her first week, without checking it. Charlotte printed the document, handed her a pen and sent her into a meeting room: "Go mark it up, use your brain." If you've never produced the work yourself, you can't spot when the AI gets it wrong.

Q: And finally, looking ahead, what's the single most important thing aspiring legal professionals should understand about AI?

That AI literacy will separate lawyers, not replace them. Oliver Storey, Head of Legal at Metro Bank, said it well: "We will be replaced by people that use AI if we don't get on that bandwagon."

I spoke to Amy Cronin's (Legal Director) team at Skyscanner. They are now building their own agents: a contract bot, a procurement bot, a regulatory horizon scanner. That's the opportunity for the next generation. Learn to build, do the things others can't, and pair that with the judgement AI can't teach. That combination will set you apart in any legal team.

Thanks so much to Ed for taking the time to chat with us. If you’re already working in an in-house team who might benefit from Nomio, or you’re just interested in reading more about what they do, you can view their website and book a free demo here.

Even now, ten years into my legal career, I really struggle with receiving constructive feedback. I know the feedback isn't personal, but I still find it hard to hear.

If you feel the same way, you're in good company. Most legal professionals I know still feel that small sting when someone points out what they could have done better.

Here's something that helps me. I try to separate the moment from the message. In the moment, it’s fine to feel a bit deflated or even emotional, especially if it’s something you put hard work into. But give it a day or even a week, then go back and read the feedback again with fresh eyes. Remember that not all feedback is worth the same weight; only you decide if it's information you want to do something with.

And finally, remember that the best legal professionals, even those decades into their legal career, are still learning and improving.

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

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^{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.}