Join Us Early Careers
Discover a range of opportunities and programmes available at MacRoberts. Whether you are a school student looking to gain experience within a work environment or seeking to secure an apprenticeship as a starting point within your career, we have a variety of programmes to get involved with.
What work experience do we offer?
MacRoberts is an active member of the PRIME Programme – an innovative initiative by the UK's leading law firms to improve social mobility and inspire greater diversity within the legal profession.
Our work experience allows young people from less privileged backgrounds to gain insight into the many different jobs which exist within a law firm. Students are given the chance to work alongside our lawyers on live matters and have exposure to our clients.
Students also get the chance to visit different departments so that they can gain an insight into aspects of our business other than law i.e. our professional support services such as IT, Marketing and People & Development. Students are assigned a mentor to offer day-to-day support and guidance during the work placement.
Who can apply for a PRIME
work experience placement?
We offer work experience to secondary school students who meet the PRIME criteria, and those who are:
- S4 - S6 students; and
- Attend, and have always attended, a state-funded (non fee-paying) school
Additional criteria
Students must also meet one or more additional PRIME criteria*, a summary of which is available here.
* Young people who meet the local authority care criterion do not need to meet any other criterion.
Through my PRIME placement at MacRoberts, I learned about all of the different departments across the firm – some of which I wouldn't have even considered to be a major factor in running a law firm. As I shadowed people in these departments, I found that a lot of areas of law which I wouldn't have thought of as interesting before, really are. My placement gave me great insight to what I would enjoy doing in the future.
How do I apply for a PRIME work experience placement?
The application process for our 2023 PRIME placements is now closed.
Details of our 2024 PRIME placements will be available in early 2024.
My PRIME placement with MacRoberts made me feel so motivated and as if I could truly do anything that I put my mind to. It showed me that it shouldn't matter what background you come from – at the end of the day, in order to be successful, you really just need a whole lot of passion and drive.
PRIME Virtual Legal Work Experience Programme
This programme has been designed for students who meet PRIME's Eligibility Criteria, but it is open to all.
This programme will give you an insight into what a career in law might look like. You will get to experience what real lawyers do every day, working on tasks that introduce you to different practice areas, including commercial and criminal law. You will also build legal skills and gain an understanding of what it means to be a lawyer, helping you to decide if this is the career for you.
You don’t need to have any prior legal experience to complete the programme and you can do so at your own pace to fit around other school and home commitments.
In order to participate, you will need to register and create a Forage account. If you have any queries about the PRIME Virtual Legal Work Experience Programme, please contact PRIME.
The PRIME work experience placement was an eye-opener for me as I got to see all the different departments of a commercial law firm that I didn't really know of before. I also learned about all of the different things that go on within a law firm, in both the legal and non-legal side.
Apprenticeships
We are proud to support apprenticeships as a route to a career within our firm.
We run a Modern Apprenticeship scheme, offering opportunities to individuals within our business functions including, People & Development, IT, Finance and Marketing. Our apprenticeship roles provide the opportunity to gain invaluable skills and gain qualifications whilst working full-time.
