Apprenticeships

Great step. Serious start.

Take the next step in your legal career

Launch your legal career with our new five-year Legal Apprenticeship programme, offering a bespoke and practical pathway to becoming a qualified lawyer. Applications are currently closed and will reopen Autumn 2026.

The programme provides a structured pathway, allowing you to build your legal knowledge and skills over time, with early exposure to real-world client work. You’ll have the freedom to flex your route to qualification, giving you the ability to learn in a way that suits you.

Earn while you learn

Get paid while working towards your legal qualifications.

Gain qualifications

A structured pathway gives you the training and qualifications to start your legal career.

Get hands-on experience

Get practical legal experience and early exposure to client work.

Tailor your learning

With flexible routes to qualification, learn in a way that suits your style.

Be supported

Get a mentor, benefit from a dedicated supervisor, a supportive buddy, and guidance from our Early Careers team.

Your pathway to law

Before you start

You’ll take part in a comprehensive induction and skills masterclass, so you’ll feel fully prepared as you embark on your career. Plus, you’ll meet and get to know the Early Careers team, your supervisor and buddy!

Years 1-2

Undertake a two-year Paralegal Apprenticeship based in our Managed Legal Services team in either our Bristol or Taunton offices.

  • Gain a Paralegal Apprenticeship – over the two-year period you’ll gain practical experience and undertake your Paralegal Apprenticeship.
  • Work with our Managed Legal Services team – this team play a pivotal role in driving quality, efficiency, and collaboration across our legal teams. It’s a fast-paced team where you will gain essential business and professional skills that will support your legal career.
  • Choose your qualification route – after successfully completing your Paralegal Apprenticeship, you’ll be supported by our Early Careers team as you choose the qualification route you want to take in your third year (either via the SQE or CILEX pathway).

Year 3

Study towards your SQE or CILEX qualification and work as a paralegal in a different area of the business to give you exposure to other areas of the law.

  • The SQE and CILEX are qualifications that help you gain the knowledge and skills you need to be a successful lawyer.
  • Completion of these qualifications is the final stage on your path to becoming a lawyer.
  • Whilst undertaking your qualification you’ll work in one of our legal teams – this will help broaden your experience, knowledge, and application of different types of law.

Years 4-5

Pending which qualification route you choose, you may proceed to undertake our Training Contract to qualify as a Solicitor or remain working in one of our legal teams to qualify as a CILEX Lawyer.

Throughout

You’ll receive continuous support from our Early Careers team, a dedicated mentor, supervisor and buddy ensuring that you’re guided every step of the way.

Your pathway to law

Before you start

You’ll take part in a comprehensive induction and skills masterclass, so you’ll feel fully prepared as you embark on your career. Plus, you’ll meet and get to know the Early Careers team, your supervisor and buddy!

Years 1-2

Undertake a two-year Paralegal Apprenticeship based in our Managed Legal Services team in either our Bristol or Taunton offices.

  • Gain a Paralegal Apprenticeship – over the two-year period you’ll gain practical experience and undertake your Paralegal Apprenticeship.
  • Work with our Managed Legal Services team – this team play a pivotal role in driving quality, efficiency, and collaboration across our legal teams. It’s a fast-paced team where you will gain essential business and professional skills that will support your legal career.
  • Choose your qualification route – after successfully completing your Paralegal Apprenticeship, you’ll be supported by our Early Careers team as you choose the qualification route you want to take in your third year (either via the SQE or CILEX pathway).

Year 3

Study towards your SQE or CILEX qualification and work as a paralegal in a different area of the business to give you exposure to other areas of the law.

  • The SQE and CILEX are qualifications that help you gain the knowledge and skills you need to be a successful lawyer.
  • Completion of these qualifications is the final stage on your path to becoming a lawyer.
  • Whilst undertaking your qualification you’ll work in one of our legal teams – this will help broaden your experience, knowledge, and application of different types of law.

Years 4-5

Pending which qualification route you choose, you may proceed to undertake our Training Contract to qualify as a Solicitor or remain working in one of our legal teams to qualify as a CILEX Lawyer.

Throughout

You’ll receive continuous support from our Early Careers team, a dedicated mentor, supervisor and buddy ensuring that you’re guided every step of the way.

Meet Amy: taking the leap from college into a corporate law firm.

After studying English, History and Politics, Amy realised law was the perfect fit, a mix of all the subjects she enjoyed. She chose the apprenticeship route, knowing it would suit her learning style better: gaining hands‑on experience, building confidence in a real legal environment, and earning while she worked. She even moved from Bournemouth to Bristol to make it happen.

Watch her story to find out what inspired her, how she has found the journey so far, and how apprenticeships can open doors at the very start your career.

The application process

Step 2: Complete an application form

Our application form is an opportunity for you to shine and show us what sets you apart from your peers. As well as understanding your legal experience and business understanding we also want to find out more about YOU!

Alongside basic biographical information, we’ll ask you to provide details of your academic achievements, any work experience, volunteering experience or interests you have and, finally, ask you three qualitative questions.

Find out more about what makes a good application by watching our recent application guidance webinar recording or listening to Episode 2 of The Trainee Lowdown podcast

We are proud to use contextual recruitment within our selection process. This means we look at your academic achievements in the context within which they were achieved helping us to review your application holistically.

We recognise it’s tempting to utilise AI tools to create your answers. However, our application questions are designed to show who you are and what makes you unique so make sure your personality shows through!

Step 3: Prepare for your online assessment and video interview

Once the application window has closed, you’ll receive an email from our recruitment system with a link to an online assessment and video interview. Make sure to check your junk folder for the assessment link – just in case it gets sent there!

Once received, there will be a set window (usually between 2-4 weeks) during which you’ll need to complete your online assessment and video interview. You’ll receive an email with details about this.

Read our guidance on taking your online assessment here.

Plus, you can practice your technique by taking a practice assessment here.

Step 4: Take your online assessment and video interview

Our online assessment and video interview are designed to assess your potential. We’ll ask you a series of questions to get a sense of your situational judgement, problem-solving skills, and behavioural traits.

This will be followed by a short video interview. In this interview you’ll be asked four questions. You’ll have one minute to think about your answer to each question followed by one minute to record your answer.

You do not have to complete all the elements in one sitting – you can log in, complete some, save your progress and then come back to pick up where you left off. You aren’t judged on how long it takes you to complete this, but you do need to complete it within the two-week window.

You’ll receive an email when you hit ‘submit’ to notify you that the online test and video have been successfully completed. If you don’t get an email, then go back in and double check you clicked the ‘submit’ button!

Step 5: Assessment Day

If you are successful in your application form, online test, and video interview you will be invited to take part in our Assessment Day. This will take place in-person in our Bristol office. If you have applied via a Vacation Scheme, this will happen on your final day with us. There are three key elements to the assessment:

  • Case-study. You’ll be asked to prepare a response to a hypothetical task. It will be based on the type of work you are likely to carry out as a trainee. There is no need to prepare in advance or have specific legal knowledge.
  • Interview. You will have an hour-long interview with a Partner and a member of our HR team. During this, you will discuss the case-study you’ve worked on as well as your motivations for training with us. Be sure to use a variety of examples from your work life, hobbies, interests, or studies. 
  • Group exercise. Alongside your fellow candidates you’ll undertake a short exercise designed to test your collaboration and teamworking skills.

Get top tips on how to excel at your Assessment Day by listening to Episode 3 of The Trainee Lowdown podcast.

Your assessors won’t see a copy of your application in advance of the Assessment Day – this is to help remove unconscious bias from our selection processes.

Throughout the day we encourage you to be yourself, let your personality shine through, and show us all the great qualities you have to offer!

Step 6: Offers

If you are successful in the process and we make you an offer you will receive a contract which includes with further details of the position. You’ll then have two weeks to let us know if you would like to accept – which we hope you do!

Application resources

Our benefits

We pride ourselves on being a supportive employer, and we’re always looking at what our people need; to enjoy the best of work and life.

Find out more

Your family

From fertility checks to enhanced parental leave.

Your lifestyle

From birthday leave to taking a sabbatical.

Your health

From our health cash plan to free eye tests.

Your wealth

From saving money on everyday purchases to investing in your pension.

Virtual event: Step into Foot Anstey

Hear from our trainees and lawyers on what life at the firm is really like.

People stories

Hear from our people on why Foot Anstey is a great place to work.

View all

Frequently asked questions?

Applications are currently closed and will reopen during the Autumn of 2026.

If you have already achieved a qualifying law degree you will not be eligible to apply and should consider applying via our Vacation Scheme or Training Contract routes. If you do not have a degree or have a non-law degree then you are eligible to apply.

Our Managed Legal Services team play a pivotal role in driving quality, efficiency, and collaboration across our legal teams. It’s a fast-paced team where you will gain essential business and professional skills that will support your legal career.

The SQE and CILEX are both professional qualifications enabling you to qualify as a lawyer. The former leads to qualification as a Solicitor and the latter as a CILEX Lawyer. Both a CILEX Lawyer and a Solicitor are trained to the same advanced level, however there are some differences in the route taken, which are neatly outlined here.

Yes! On successful completion of our programme, whether via SQE or CILEX, you will become a qualified lawyer.

Yes. We take mitigating circumstances into consideration when reviewing applications. There is space on the application form for you to let us know what your mitigating circumstances relate to.

Typically, you will be on track to achieve, or have achieved, a minimum of BBB at A-level (or equivalent). However, we recruit contextually considering factors such as the school or college a candidate has attended, and the average grades achieved in that year. Every application is personally reviewed by a member of the team. In the spirit of being refreshingly human your academics would not be the sole factor in our decision.

Our intention is that apprentices stay with us on qualification – however, this isn’t always possible depending on the team that you may want to qualify into and the available qualified positions in those teams. In this instance, we would encourage you to explore other opportunities available within the firm.

We value the responsible use of AI in business and in everyday life. We also embrace innovation and value authenticity. Your application form provides you with the opportunity to shine. Whilst we recognise that you may wish to refer to AI tools to help with idea generation, we’d recommend that you do not simply copy and paste AI-generated responses.

Explore other apprenticeship opportunities

Search our vacancies page to see what other apprenticeship roles are currently available. If there’s not a role that suits you right now, please register your interest and we’ll let you know when the right opportunity comes up.

Explore our roles

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