A legal internship, like vacation schemes, open days, and mini-pupillages, is another type of legal work experience to help you to kickstart your legal career. Most legal internships take place in either a major company or in an in-house legal department. These typically run in the summer lasting from weeks up to a year – this is greatly beneficial for anyone thinking of taking a gap year.
Undertaking a legal internship is helpful as it gives valuable insight into how the legal department works in a company. This is especially great for those intending in pursuing a career in corporate and commercial law as it provides legal and commercial work experience in different practice areas thus boosting your CV.
Legal Internship Vs Vacation Scheme
A vacation scheme, similarly, to a legal internship, is also a form of legal work experience. Its duration can vary from a week to a month at a law firm. This gives the firm a chance to get to know you and you will also have the chance to interact with partners, trainees, and associates to find out about the work they do and the different sectors they operate.
Vacation schemes vary from law firm to law firm, however, the most common similarity is that you get the opportunity to work cases and shadowing lawyers during their day-to-day work. You will also be assigned a supervisor and a buddy for the duration of the vacation scheme. Other activities may include attending presentations or seminars.
In comparison to a legal internship, a vacation scheme is a shorter form of legal work experience, but both are jam-packed and provide invaluable experience to anyone taking part. On the other hand, most legal internships are advertised by an in-house department or by a company, therefore you do not have the interactions typically had during a vacation scheme. Furthermore, if you desire to work on live cases, a legal internship does not offer that. However, what it does offer is the knowledge of how the legal department of a company interacts with its client or other departments, e.g., human resources
What do You do at a Legal Internship?
The generic tasks that a legal intern does are:
- office administration
- attending meetings and writing up notes
- reading and reviewing legal documents
- drafting legal documents
- conducting legal research
- writing up emails
Legal Internship Openings
Company  | Position | Location | Duration |
Friends of the Earth | Legal Intern | London | 12 months |
uSwitch | RVU Legal Internship Programme | London | 3-4 weeks |
The Intern Group | Remote Global Law Internship Program | Basildon | 4-24 weeks |
Tessian | Legal Intern | Anywhere | 3 months |
Arendt & Medernach | Legal Internship | London | 3-6 months |
The AIRE Centre | Legal Caseworker Intern | Anywhere | 4 months |
Humanitarian Operations | Legal Intern | London | Unlisted |
NBCUniversal | Employment Law Intern | London | 12 months |
Reset MSM | Legal Intern | Anywhere | Unlisted |
Algolia | EMEA: Legal Counsel Intern | London | Unlisted |
By Natasha Raggoo