Work Experience Student Review

After the introduction session, there was a range of informative sessions about various aspects of the law and about Pinsent Masons as a company e.g. Responsible Business session, mixed in with independent and group exercises involving applying the law, such as contract law, and debating the Jaffa cake case.

This work experience taught me how to understand more complex legal terminology and how it can be interpreted in many different ways depending on what has the most relevance, and then applied to cases. I also learnt how to network with peers with similar ambitions to myself and how to hold mature discussions with trainee solicitors.

This work experienced provided me with all of the information and insight which I was looking to obtain when I applied. I liked that it did not simply consist of sitting on Teams silently listening to other people talk, but instead involved interacting with others and working in teams to come to an agreed outcome.

It was very well organised with all of the sessions lined up on Forage so I could see what was coming up, and every session was perfectly planned to fit the time allocated to it whilst still allowing time for questions. It all ran very smoothly with no issues, surprisingly considering it was online!

Having interacted a lot with Pinsent Masons qualified solicitors and trainee solicitors, I found that everyone was very friendly and made me feel very comfortable with unmuting my microphone and asking questions or contributing to group discussions. The sessions on Pinsent Masons as a firm and what they do to support their employees were very impressive and made the firm very attractive regarding future applications.

this work experience has helped me to confirm that the legal career is the path that I would like to follow in my future and I found out very helpful to get an idea of what a day in the life of a solicitor would look like and what sorts of tasks they do

This work experience programme was ordinarily online, with some candidates being offered the chance to go into the Birmingham office for an insight day. I was very fortunate to be given this opportunity but my lunch was provided so all I had to pay for was my train ticket, which no I was not reimbursed for but that does not bother me.

On the Birmingham office insight day which I attended, we had talks from some trainee solicitors and a networking lunch where I got to speak to solicitors at the firm and ask lots of questions. Additionally, the online sessions always had a Pinsent Masons employee present to either advise you on tasks or to answer any questions.

Yes

I had a great experience, achieving everything that I wished to from this programme in that I got a great insight into what a career in the legal profession may look like, and got experience of completing real-life tasks which is likely to be an aspect of what my job may consist of in the future.

I would advise others to use up as many of or all of the available characters for each question in the application form to really show yourself off, and it is good if you research the company and can include some specifics as to why you want experience at Pinsent Masons as opposed to other firms.