About us

DLA Piper is one of the world's largest full-service commercial law firms with offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield. We now have more than 8,000 employees working from over 60 offices across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the US. Our current vision is to be the leading global business law firm. Our clients include some of the world's leading businesses, governments, banks and financial institutions. DLA Piper offers trainees the opportunity to apply for international secondments to a range of our overseas offices. We also offer a number of client secondments.

In 2008, DLA Piper won the prestigious National Graduate Recruitment Awards' 'Diversity Recruitment Award' proving our commitment to recruiting people from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages.

DLA Piper is committed to making sure you feel part of the firm once you accept a graduate training contract with us. Our future trainees have access to our website 'Inside DLA Piper' where they can, amongst other things, contact one another via chat forums and keep up to date with what is going on in the firm wherever they are in the world.

The wider community

DLA Piper has an extensive CSR programme to support local communities around each office, which includes pro bono work as well as educational and environmental projects.

Your graduate training

Following a comprehensive residential induction, trainees complete four six-month seats during the course of their training contract. If you want responsibility, you will be given as much as you can handle and your progress will be monitored through regular reviews and feedback. The compulsory Professional Skills Course is run in-house and is tailored to meet the needs of the trainees.

Who should apply

DLA Piper will have approximately 85 vacancies for graduate training contracts commencing in 2012. We welcome applications from graduates with either a law or non-law background who have a minimum ABB at A Level (or equivalent) and expect, or have achieved a 2.1 degree classification. As well as a strong academic background, we look for good communicators and team players who, in line with the firm's main focus of work, have a keen interest in the corporate world, and also an appetite for life!

Summer scheme

We operate a formal summer scheme, which runs between June and August. Attendees sit in two different departments for a week each. A variety of talks, social events and activities are arranged to help develop your knowledge of DLA Piper and commercial law in general. There are approximately 170 places available nationwide.

For more details of our graduate recruitment opportunities, visit our website.