A consortium of City firms has joined forces to train graduates in legal operations, as the profession increasingly shifts its focus to technology and automation.
CMS UK, Dentons, Norton Rose Fulbright, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May have together created a legal operations graduate scheme, involving an intensive four-week course and regular workshops. The programme is designed to accelerate a pipeline of junior talent trained in legal operations.
The University of Law has helped to design the programme, which will focus on innovation, automation, legal tech, process design, and legal project management. The scheme is open to law and non-law graduates.
Richard King, chief legal operations officer at Herbert Smith Freehills, said: ‘Sitting at the junction of the business of law and the practice of law, the legal operations function continues to play an increasingly important role in the delivery of legal services.
‘We are all committed to attracting and developing the brightest talent in this field who will in turn drive value and innovation for our clients. This is an exciting initiative that we hope will establish an industry standard for training and development of graduates in legal operations.’
Eversheds Sutherland has also announced its first legal technology graduate scheme. The first cohort of three graduates will start in March 2022, followed by a second cohort in March 2023.
The firm has also launched ‘Techtober’, a series of training modules, interactive demos, and a global hackathon to give lawyers the chance to develop hands-on skills in legal technology.
Rachel Broquard, service excellence partner at Eversheds Sutherland, said: ‘Clients tell us that technology is of huge importance and so we’ve made it part of the key development of our people to ensure that they can listen to client challenges, have smarter technology conversations and offer enhanced technology solutions. Our legal technology graduate scheme will also see us recruit and train junior talent to continue this work in generations to come.’
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