Solicitor degree apprenticeship

We want our future lawyers to be both technically excellent and to have the skills necessary to understand our clients' businesses and our own. Therefore, you will also complete our bespoke learning and development programme throughout the six years, which has been designed to develop your core professional and business skills. You will cover areas including digital literacy, marketing, change management, law as a business and project management, in a varied programme which will help to prepare you for your career as a solicitor and enable you to provide the best service to our clients.

Eligibility and criteria

You will have gained, or be predicted, 128 UCAS points and hold a minimum of five GCSEs at grade four or above including Maths and English. We do not have requirements for specific subjects..

Using a contextual recruitment system, Dandi, we can identify high performing candidates who may have faced adverse impact during their secondary education. Therefore, if you have narrowly missed out on these grades, we would still encourage you to apply. We will judge each application on its own merits and so this grade criteria may be adjusted based on personal circumstances. Please contact our early careers team via email at earlycareers@weightmans.com for further information.

Our apprentice solicitors will develop the competencies listed below as they progress through the programme. These competencies are also used to help shape our early careers recruitment processes; we assess for potential in these areas, but we do not expect experience.

• Reasons and problem solves effectively with complex data and information and learns quickly.
• Plans, organises, prioritises and manages resources and time.
• IT literate.
• Has a strong commercial focus.
• Emotionally resilient, mature and positive when the going gets tough.
• Customer-centric — both internal and external.
• Flexible and adaptable.
• Demonstrates integrity.
• Is achievement-driven, shows initiative, takes responsibility with a ‘can do’
  attitude.
• Committed to continuous improvement.
• Attends to the detail and is quality minded.
• Self‐aware — knows own strengths and weaknesses.
• Demonstrates effective communication both verbally and in writing.
• Assertive and socially confident.
• Influential and persuasive.
• Team player and team builder who networks effectively.
• Diplomatic, tactful and empathic.
• Interpersonally skilled, reads people and situations and then adapts accordingly.
• Aware of and propagates a positive and professional image and persona.

Programme structure

We want our apprentices to qualify as solicitors who possess a range of transferable business skills, which will enable them to not only understand our business, but also equip you to be sound advisors to our clients.

In addition to the apprenticeship content, our bespoke learning and development programme has been designed to enhance these skills and alongside this, during the six years, you will have the opportunity to gain experience in our non-legal teams, this could be anything from finance to our innovation team. We believe this will help you to become a more well-rounded legal professional, by providing a unique opportunity to understand how all aspects of a law firm work.

Stage 1 – years 1 and 2

• Apprenticeship study includes: English legal system, contract law, tort or land law, client care, legal research and public law.
• Your day to day job will be: two placements in two different legal teams where you will learn about our business practices and handle legal tasks.
• We will also train you in: how a law firm works, personal effectiveness, finance, Microsoft Office and time management.

Stage 2 – years 3 and 4

• Apprenticeship study includes: criminal law, tort or land law, company law, trusts law, professional conduct, advocacy and negotiation.
• Your day to day job will be: two further legal placements and the opportunity to work within a business services team such as finance, IT or marketing.
• We will also train you in: understanding our clients, project management, pricing, presentation skills and negotiation.

Stage 3 – years 5 and 6

• Apprenticeship study includes: property law & practice, dispute resolution, wills & administration of estates, criminal law & practice. You will complete your Solicitor Qualifying Exams in year 6.
• Your day to day job will be: completing more complex work in two final placements and make a decision of where you would like to qualify as a solicitor.
• We will also train you in: business development, problem solving, decision making, horizon scanning and design thinking.

Why choose Weightmans?

We want to help you nurture a career you love, providing a working life and environment you’ll not only enjoy, but a place where you’ll love coming to work every day. We’ll challenge you to meet your potential and support you to achieve it, and then celebrate and reward your success.

In 2024, our commitment to the development and satisfaction of our employees was confirmed with the Top Employers Institute certification for the 17^th year. The independent research highlighted our dedication to a better world of work through excellent HR policies and people practices.

We are truly committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, where everyone in the firm is respected and recognised on merit for the work that they do.

In our offices, we have unique and open spaces accompanied by agile working for great work-life harmony. With a focus on learning and development of our people, we are proud to have consistently high trainee solicitor retention rates.

As much as we work hard, we like to play hard too! Having appropriate work/life harmony is something we value for all our people. Our social calendar is always full, from theatre visits and quizzes to office parties. Each of our offices has an active social committee who are always looking for new members to get involved. We encourage our graduates to keep in touch as a national cohort with training and annual events.

We pride ourselves in our CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) work and support a number of deserving charities, both nationally and local to our offices, including Clatterbridge Cancer Charity, Francis House, Simon on the Streets and many more. As part of our commitment, all staff receive two days of paid CSR leave each year, and each office has a local committee who are always looking for new members, and this may be something you would like to be a part of once you join us.

Salary and benefits

We offer excellent salary and benefits, our current 1st year salary is £21,840 moving to £29,000 by the final year. For London, the salary is currently £23,933 in year 1, moving to £36,000 by the final year.

As a Weightmans employee, you will also be entitled to our excellent staff benefits which include:

• 28 days' holiday
• Healthcare cover
• Pension plan
• Travel loan scheme
• Employee care scheme
• Discounted gym membership
• Dental care scheme

Meet us to find out more

If you have any queries, please feel free to get in touch by email via earlycareers@weightmans.com and follow us on Instagram @weightmansearlycareers.

How to apply

Please note that applications have now closed and we are unable to accept any further applications. Applications will reopen in Autumn 2025.

To be notified when applications reopen, please fill in the expression of interest form below.

Legal insights programme

Are you in year 12 or above, in undergraduate degrees (excluding Law), or do you have a keen interest in pursuing a legal career? If so, we are excited to announce the launch of our 2025 legal insights programme. Our aim is to provide students with an insight into our law firm, the legal career pathways available and to introduce you to members of the firm to discover what they do here at Weightmans and how a law firm works.