Lewis Silkin |

From iconic brands and leading multinationals to pioneering start-ups, we are proud to work with a huge range of inspiring clients, helping them to turn their ideas into reality and get the best from - and for - their people.

Our people are not only exceptional at what they do, they also enjoy doing it and consistently give their best to a firm they’re proud to be part of. This stems from our firm culture and our ethos of bravery and kindness. That ethos runs through everything we do, from our approach to recruitment, business practices, and DEI activities to the day-to-day environment in our office and our relationships with clients.  

With an internationally minded team of more than 700 working across key areas of law – plus strategic partnerships around the world – we’ve got both the combination and calibre of legal experts it takes to enable our clients’ businesses to thrive. Whether it is providing global employment law advice, managing a global IP portfolio or piecing together a multijurisdictional corporate transaction, we are able to have the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

We recognise our trainees and solicitor apprentices as the future of our firm and therefore invest heavily in offering comprehensive training and expert supervision. From the moment you join us, you will be actively involved in Lewis Silkin life. Not only will you be given hands-on training plus interesting, challenging and varied work, you will also be getting early responsibility, a chance to work with some of our big-name clients and most importantly, made to feel a key member of the team.

We are proud winners of the ‘Firm of the Year’ category at The Lawyer Awards 2025 – the most prestigious category in the UK’s most important legal awards. This is testament to our innovative approach and collaborative culture. 

Our major practice areas include: digital, creative and commerce; corporate; data, privacy and cyber; dispute resolution; employment; immigration; investigations and regulatory; partnership; real estate; tax, reward and incentives; and trade mark and portfolio management.

Key sectors we work in include advertising and marketing; financial services; media and entertainment; professional services; retail, fashion and hospitality; sports business; and technology. 

When we recruit, our focus is simply on finding the best candidate for the role - regardless of their background. We are looking for genuine passion and interest within our practice areas and specialist sectors and someone who is enthusiastic and motivated, possesses strong communication skills and is a team player who works for the benefit of all.

When applying for our training contract or solicitor apprenticeship, it can be tempting to tell us what you think we want to hear, and pretend to be someone you're not. However, the person we most want to hear from is the genuine 'you'. We want to get to know you, your experience, and what excites you about working at Lewis Silkin. Likewise, we want you to get to know us in return.

Throughout the process, we will be looking to understand two fundamental points:

• Why you want to be a commercial solicitor
• Why you want to train at Lewis Silkin

You should view your application as an opportunity to introduce yourself to us, and highlight what makes you a strong candidate for our training contract or solicitor apprenticeship.

We offer training contracts in our London, Belfast, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

At Lewis Silkin we have eight seat options: (1) Corporate, (2) Data, (3) Digital, Commerce, and Creative, (4) Dispute Resolution, (5) Employment, (6) Immigration,  (7) Intellectual Property Disputes, and (8) Real Estate.

Further information about the seat rotation process can be found here: https://www.lewissilkin.com/insights/2023/05/16/seat-rotations

Sometimes there may also be the opportunity to go on a Client Secondment for 3 – 6 months, where you’ll work in-house on a placement to a client’s legal team. For more on Secondments please see our blog here. 

You will also have to do one contentious seat throughout the period of your training contract. You’ll have the choice of either Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property Disputes, or Employment (within the Employment, Litigation, and Financial Services sub-team).

Further information about the seat rotation process can be found here: https://www.lewissilkin.com/insights/2023/05/16/seat-rotations 

When and how to apply

You’ll need to apply through our online application form via Candid. The deadline to apply is 14 January 2026. Further information is available on our website and social media channels.

If you’re passionate about a career in law, and want to get started by gaining genuine legal experience, working alongside lawyers who are specialists in their field – then a solicitor apprenticeship may be the route for you. Unlike a traditional law degree, apprentices get the chance to obtain practical, hands-on experience, and develop research, negotiation and client-service skills.

As an apprentice at Lewis Silkin, you’ll spend four days a week with us, and one day a week studying with your apprenticeship education provider. By the end of the apprenticeship you’ll have earned your Law LLB University degree, gained six years of experience, and be a fully qualified solicitor through the SQE route.

Our apprentices gain exposure to a wide range of practice areas including Immigration, Employment and Legal Tech in the first four years of the programme. In the last two years, our apprentices join the trainee seat rotation where you’ll spend six months in 4 different teams, choosing from the eight options mentioned above.

We recruit for our Solicitor Apprentices bi-annually. Applications for our September 2026 intake will open in September 2025. The apprenticeships will be available in our London office.

Further information can be found here: https://www.lewissilkin.com/life-at-ls/careers/solicitor-apprentices 

If you're in 6th form and are looking to get a headstart on your legal career, we offer a range of opportunities for you to gain insight into life and work at Lewis Silkin.

We run three four-day placements throughout the year in our London office. Further information can be found here: https://www.lewissilkin.com/life-at-ls/careers/work-experience

Our firm is named after Lewis Silkin, whose story of social mobility continues to inspire us. His family were refugees from Lithuania and he was brought up in poverty, but qualified as a solicitor before becoming an MP and eventually sitting in the House of Lords. This history is at the core of our culture and our values and it drives our commitment to ensure that access to the legal profession is open and fair and that the profession itself is diverse and socially inclusive.

More broadly, we recognise that a more diverse and inclusive workplace allows for a plethora of ideas, thoughts and skillsets, a variety of points of view that can generate broader discussions and result in innovation, enhanced client service and a stronger and more cohesive team.

We are proud of the diverse range of people within Lewis Silkin and culture of bravery and kindness that allows individuals to be themselves at work, ensuring we provide the best possible service to our clients. All colleagues are encouraged to play a role in activities related to DEI or Responsible Business. A number of DEI groups are active across the firm - Gender, Age, Race and Ethnicity, Social Mobility, Lewis SilkOut (LGBTQ+), Disability, Wellbeing, and Interfaith – supported by our DEI Board and DEI & Wellbeing Lead.

We also have four Responsible Business groups that colleagues can join – Pro bono, Charity & Fundraising, Sustainability and Education & Social Mobility – supported by our Responsible Business Executive Committee and Responsible Business & Sustainability team.

We use Rare Recruitment's Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) to consider every student's achievements in context, helping to identify those with the greatest potential, from all backgrounds.

 

Recent progress on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI):

• We are 7th in the UK on the Social Mobility Index, which ranks UK employers according to changes they are making to how they find, recruit and advance talented employees from less privileged backgrounds
• We remain committed to widening access to the legal profession. During the year we delivered 31 careers outreach sessions in schools in areas of low social mobility, with 700 students in total in attendance. Almost 60 students participated in our flagship Mentoring Scheme, a nine-month programme for students aged 16-18 whom attend school in social mobility cold spots
• We continue to have equal representation of men and women at board level and in our senior leadership roles, and women have made up 69% of internal Partner promotions over the past two years
• In 2024, we introduced our New Parent Policy, which makes all new parents employed in our firm – irrespective of role or gender – eligible for a full twelve months’ leave and six months’ full pay
• Our Solicitor Apprenticeship scheme is successfully providing an alternative route to qualifying as a solicitor at Lewis Silkin, helping us to attract a more diverse range of candidates to the firm. We currently have five apprentices on our programme who will eventually qualify as a solicitor via this route and will be recruiting a further two apprentices in 2025
• In 2023 we published our social mobility pay gap report for the first time and recently published our 2024 report

Our commitments

• We are a signatory to The Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter, the leading diversity initiative of the legal profession
• We are a legal partner to The Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion
• We are a signatory to The Law Society’s Women in Law Pledge
• Our gender goals are for 45% of partners to be women by 2027, to achieve gender balance in leadership and other fee-earning roles and to reduce our gender pay gap by 40% (from its 2019 levels) by 2027
• We have signed up to the PRIME Commitment, a scheme offering quality work experience to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. We have provided work experience to 6 students via this scheme over the past two years.
• We have been an accredited Living Wage Employer since 2012, and we extend this to outsourced services
• We are a founding member of the inter-law LGBT network group, LeGalBesT
• We work with MyPlus to support students and graduates with disabilities land their dream job

Awards related to DE&I

We recently won ‘DEI Firm of the Year’ at the Legal 500 Northern Powerhouse awards.

We were recently named as finalist in three categories of the UK Social Mobility Awards, including the most prestigious category – Organisation of the Year. There are also two nominations for individual colleagues: Partner, Cliff Fluet – Mentor of the Year and Associate, Craig Turner – Rising Star.

In 2024, at the Women, Influence & Power Awards, we were shortlisted for ‘ESG initiative of the year’ in relation to the sustainability and organisational culture aspects of our move to our new London office. One of our Associates, Sophie Jamieson, was also shortlisted for a ‘Rising Star’ award for her work to improve social mobility in the legal sector and we were shortlisted for ‘Social Mobility Firm of the Year’.

In 2023, Sophie Jameson, Associate, won the ‘Highly Commended and Gold Award’ in the Rising Star category at the UK Social Mobility Awards. Sophie founded our Cold Spot Outreach Programme, which delivers remote and in-person careers events to students in Year 10 and upwards in areas of low social mobility.