The training contract

At Freshfields we have a very broad practice and we enable you to see as much of it as possible by offering three month seats (although you can spend longer in most departments if you wish – it's up to you).

We recommend that you spend at least three months in corporate and finance and you will need to spend three months in dispute resolution unless you opt to do a shorter course off-site instead. The practical experience and focused introductory training you receive in these core areas of work provide the basic framework you need to operate in any of our other practice areas.

We ensure that you meet people from other departments and practice groups and attend presentations given by them, so that you can decide which areas of our practice may be of interest to you. These include real estate; tax; intellectual property & information technology; employment, pensions & benefits and antitrust, competition & trade.

You will have the opportunity to indicate at regular intervals what you are interested in doing during the course of your training contract. We give high priority to your preferences, both in terms of where you want to go and how long you want to spend there.

Many of our trainees spend six months in one of our international offices or three or six months on secondment to a client. Recent client secondments include Airbus Industrie in Toulouse, Tesco, Sony Computer Entertainment and Morgan Stanley. There are opportunities for secondments once you are qualified too.

Your progress is monitored throughout the training contract. We arrange formal sessions with supervisors and appraisal partners during and at the end of each rotation to ensure you get constructive feedback and gain the right spread of experience. We expect trainees to seek feedback informally at other times too.

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