Looking for law firm work experience? Solicitors Near Me shares with you the easiest ways for you to get law firms work experience wherever you live or wherever you want to undertake your law firm work experience.
We will share with you on this page the easiest, sure fire way to obtain law firm work experience.
Solicitors Near Me work with hundreds of solicitors across the UK, and the author is a former solicitor and now runs Solicitors Near Me, so we understand what solicitors are looking for when it comes to law firm work experience.
Let’s start with you and the type of law firm work experience that you are looking for.
1. Which Area Of Law Are You Looking To Work In?
This is the most important part of your process.
Are you looking for a law firm that works with individuals, or would you prefer to work with a commercial law firm?
It is really important that you think about this, as if you are using law firm work experience to decide whether a career in the law is for you, you really want to gain some work experience in the area or areas of law that you are interested in working in in the future.
Do you want to be a business solicitor, or a commercial conveyancing solicitor (working with commercial buildings and leases)?
Are you looking to be a divorce or family solicitor, or to help people with problems at work as an employment solicitor?
Or do you want to take care of people when they have lost loved ones and become a probate solicitor, dealing with the estates of family members for them when their loved ones pass away?
If you are not sure, think about what interests you at the moment at school or in your private life.
Are you interested in your local property market, so working in a conveyancing law firm might be best for you.
Or do you always look at the local businesses and wonder who they work, how much money they make and what it would be like to work with them or for them?
Once you know the type of law firm work experience you are looking for, we can move on to part 2.
2. Which Law Firm Or Types Of Law Firm Are You Looking To Work With?
Now that you have narrowed down the type of law firm work experience you are looking for, it is time to go looking for the ones offering these services near to where you live.
The easiest way to do this is using Google.
Head to a new tab, type in the type of firm that you are looking for and your location, then head to the map search results.
See the example below looking for Conveyancing Solicitors Bristol.
Take a look at the results and see the reviews of each firm listed.
To see more firms in the area that you are searching for, and to ensure that they are offering the services that you would like work experience in, click the More Businesses button and more will load in the area you are searching for.
Select the ones with the best reviews, then click through to each of their websites to check:
- That they have a services page (and ideally lots of them) for the area of law that you would like your work experience in; and
- To read a few of their website pages.
Remember that not only are you choosing the firm that looks to match your needs the best, but the firms that you are going to apply to receive dozens of requests from people for work experience.
To give yourself the best chance of success, you need to do a little bit of homework on your potential experience firm so that you can personalise your email to them.
What you are looking for is:
- What do they do well on their website? Do they have dozens of client reviews saying how good they are? Do they have a lot of pages about the area of law that you are interested in? Is the photography good? You want to be able to quote three or four things that you see that you think they are doing very well, and include these in your email to the firm.
- If you can find nothing positive to say, discard them from your short list of potential firms and move on to the others.
- If you have noted three or four things down that you like, the next thing to do is to find the person or people who work in the department that you would like to work in. Head to the Team or About Us page and find the “Our People” section. Search until you find the people working in the legal department that you would like your work experience to take place in. Fortunately, most law firms list the people’s names, interests and email addresses. You can either email the head of the department, or more than one person in each firm to increase your chances of being found.
3. Prepare Your Email Asking For Work Experience
Now you want to prepare a draft email referring to all of the items you found on each website that you liked and draft it to the person or people you have found on the team pages.
If they do not have an email address listed, you can send it to the general email with FAO (For the attention of) “INSERT THEIR NAME” in the subject line, then start the email Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms or other, to show that you have done your research.
An email sent to the general email address with just “Hello, I am looking for work experience” will go straight in the bin because you have made no effort to personalise it, but a tailored email with a little bit of preparation will DRAMATICALLY increase your chances of success.
4. How To Further Increase Your Chances Of Law Firm Work Experience Success
1. Make a follow up telephone call 3-7 days after your email
If you are serious about your law work experience, calling up 3-7 days after your email, asking to speak to the person who you emailed, and starting with the simple line of:
“I am just calling to check that you received my email” will nicely open up a conversation opportunity for you, and again, will put you ahead of your competition.
2. Drop into the law firm(s)
Dropping in to each of the firms, introducing yourself to the receptionist and explaining you emailed NAME about work experience and just wanted to say hello and to see if NAME had any questions for you, will also go a long long way.
Most people won’t make the effort to do this, but anyone who does is almost guaranteed to find themselves their ideal law firm work experience place.
Will you do this?
If you do, and it works (it will), please let us know, by emailing us at hello@solicitorsnearme.com. Our mission at Solicitors Near Me is to help people, so when we do, we really appreciate you letting us know.
Happy Law Firm Work Experience hunting!