Kennedys to introduce new route to qualification for aspiring lawyers

We are excited to announce that we have introduced an alternative route to qualifying as a solicitor that allows UK graduates to begin earning immediately.

This new route, which will come into effect from Autumn 2021, will incorporate the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) and will form a 30 month Graduate Solicitor Apprenticeship (GSA) – allowing graduates to start earning as soon as they commence the GSA, without the need to complete the LPC. We will continue to offer our existing training contracts for graduates, and paralegal apprenticeships for school leavers.

This innovative new training programme will see law graduates start working for us, while gaining qualifying legal work experience in one of our teams before sitting the SQE1 and SQE2 exams required to qualify as a solicitor.

Caroline Wilson, HR director at Kennedys, says: “Introducing the new SQE route to qualification will allow us to attract and train people from a much wider range of backgrounds, as graduates can start earning as soon as they commence the Graduate Solicitor Apprenticeship.

“Kennedys has always embraced providing opportunities to all and following the success of our Legal Apprenticeship, launched in 2012, we wanted to introduce this new route as soon as we could to enable talented graduates to qualify at Kennedys.

“A more diverse workforce brings with it better perspectives and ideas, which is crucial as we look to transform legal services for our clients. We look forward to meeting our applicants over the coming months and watching them succeed as the next generation of lawyers at Kennedys.”

An early pioneer of legal apprenticeships, our commitment to supporting and developing the next generation of lawyers has seen us recruit 84 apprentices in the eight years we have been running our apprenticeship programme – 75% of whom have remained with us.

Last year we were recognised at the School Leaver Awards where we won the ‘Best Degree Apprenticeship’ award. We are also a former two-time winner of the ‘Top Employer in Law’ at the same awards.