Where bright
minds meet

London Graduates

Start your career in law with Clifford Chance, where the brightest minds work as one team for our clients

Why Clifford Chance

As one of the largest international law firms, our work spans jurisdictions, cultures, and languages – and so do our people.

We believe every career at Clifford Chance should be rewarding and stimulating – full of opportunities to learn, thrive, and grow. That’s why we’re so proud of our inclusive, friendly, and collaborative approach to work.

Our one firm global strategy is focused on targeted growth led by the needs of our core clients, those who we can best support with the breadth and depth of Clifford Chance expertise, across the sectors and geographies, which matter most to them. 

With over 30 offices across the world, we're uniquely placed to advise market-leading clients on complex deals that frequently headline the business and financial news. The work you do and the people you work with won't be limited by where you're based. From when you join as a trainee, you'll become an integral part of an innovative, diverse and ambitious team of people.

What we offer

Our Training Contract is aimed at penultimate year law students, final year students, graduates and beyond. It's designed to give you the breadth of experience you need to emerge as a confident business adviser.

Our multi-award winning SPARK scheme has been developed from a one-week internship into a two-year programme to give you deep insights into our work and life as a Clifford Chance lawyer. SPARK is for first year law students on a three-year course, second year law students of a four-year course and penultimate year non-law students and can lead you straight to a Training Contract.

ACCESS is our bespoke, award-winning, two-year development programme for year 12 students with an opportunity to convert on to SPARK.

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The Real Contract

The Clifford Chance Training Contract is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for aspiring lawyers, opening a door to countless opportunities that will allow you to flourish in your career. But signing your contract is only the beginning.

Hear what our people have to say about what it’s like to be a lawyer at Clifford Chance.

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Global Virtual Internships

Our free, open access internships, with over 60 hours of modular content, represent the future of virtual work-experience and help to break down barriers to the profession by creating meaningful learning opportunities for all. With plenty to choose from, our virtual internships are a great way to understand if a career in law is for you before you start making an application.

The content has been created by leading experts from across our global network and over 140,000 people have registered so far. These internships will not only expose you to international work in a way that has never been done before but will also enable you to develop the kind of analytical abilities that will turn you into a leading lawyer of tomorrow.
 

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Events Hub

We have grouped our events into a series structure, offering a mix of formats and providing access to global legal professionals.

Aside from our four in-person conferences ACCEPT, ADAPT, Black in Law and ELEVATE which are for specific audiences and require an application, our Flagship Events are hybrid in nature and open to all, giving you the chance to meet us in person or to engage with the content virtually – no applications necessary! Each flagship event will bring you in-depth views into our market-leading work and collaborative culture at Clifford Chance.

Delivered with support from our future trainees, trainees and lawyers, our virtual Skills Sessions are designed to help you understand what we look for in our application and assessment process and are illustrated with real life examples from our guest hosts.

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Meet us

You'll find that there are many ways for you to interact with our people, experience our culture and to learn from the broad range of resources we have made available to you. We're always open to hearing how we can best support you when taking your next steps with us.

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Apply now

Applications for our opportunities:

  • Training Contract – August 2026 and February 2027
  • SPARK - 2024
  • ACCESS - 2024

Applications for our Training Contract are closed until 2024.

Apply

The Times Top 100 Legal Employer of Choice 2023

For the second consecutive year we're thrilled to be named the Graduate Employer of Choice in the legal sector by The Times Top 100. This is based on research from over 13,000 interviews with final year university students. Clifford Chance also ranked 17th in the list of top employers, the highest ranking of any law firm.

Award-winning Global Virtual Internships at People in Law Awards

Our Global Virtual Internships won 'Best Global HR initiative' at the People in Law Awards 2022. This award recognised the scale and reach of this global initiative in improving access to the profession.

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Legal Sector Employer of the Year at TARGETjobs Awards

A pool of over 66,000 student voters named Clifford Chance the Most Popular Graduate Recruiter in Law at the 2023 TARGETjobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards – for the second year running.