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Training Contract - Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, London, Sheffield
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Training Contract
Our training contract is designed to help you build the legal, commercial, and professional skills needed to thrive as a solicitor. Through our direct route, you’ll join a firm that’s collaborative, ambitious, and focused on delivering high-quality work for clients. Before you start, you’ll take part in CMS Academy – our pre-joining programme that introduces you to the business of law, our clients, our people, and the way we work.
Once you start, you’ll typically complete four six-month seats over two years, gaining experience across different practice areas and working alongside lawyers at all levels. You’ll be trusted with meaningful work, expected to take ownership of your development, and supported to build the judgement, confidence, and commercial awareness to make a strong contribution. Because here, your growth and the firm’s go hand in hand.
What To Expect
Broad Legal Experience
You’ll work across different practice groups, developing a rounded understanding of our sectors, clients, and the role lawyers play in helping organisations navigate change.
Meaningful Responsibility
From client meetings to live matters, you’ll gain practical experience that helps you build judgement, confidence, and accountability.
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Performance-focused Development
Courses, lectures, technical workshops, and on-the-job learning will help you build strong foundations and keep improving throughout the programme.
Support and Feedback
You’ll have a seat supervisor, access to the Emerging Talent team, and support from the trainee representative committee, with guidance and feedback to help you perform at your best.
Wider Opportunities
There may be opportunities to undertake a client secondment, an international secondment, or a secondment to another CMS office, subject to business need and availability.
About CMS Academy
CMS Academy is our flagship pre-joining programme and one of the ways we invest in our next generation of talent before the training contract begins. Across two weeks, you’ll take part in a Business of Law development programme and spend time within your chosen CMS office.
You’ll explore the commercial context in which we work, meet clients, work on live matters, and build relationships with partners, colleagues, and future trainees. CMS Academy is designed to help you understand the expectations of a high-performing legal environment and feel part of CMS from the beginning.
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What's the Next Step?
Before you start your training contract, we will sponsor your studies and pay you a maintenance grant while you complete your Solicitors Qualification Examinations (SQE). If you are studying or have a non-law degree, we’ll sponsor your Post Graduate Diploma in Law (PGDL) and subsequent SQE. These will be completed prior to your Qualifying Work Experience (QWE).
Application Process
- Online application form
- Critical thinking test
- Video Interview
- Assessment Day
Duration
Two-year programme
Locations
- Bristol
- Liverpool
- London
- Manchester
- Sheffield
Opportunities for international secondments (restrictions permitting).
Eligibility
- Law students in their penultimate or final year of study
- Non-law students in their final year of study
- Graduates and postgraduate students from both law and non-law backgrounds
- Career changers looking to build a career in the legal profession
Salary and Benefits
- Bristol - First Year Trainee (£43,000)
- Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool - First Year Trainee (£33,000)
- London - First Year Trainee (£50,000)
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