Irwin Mitchell

The Legal 500 Future Lawyers verdict on Irwin Mitchell

Irwin Mitchell is often known as the personal legal services firm, and many trainees cited the ‘family, personal injury and medical negligence work’ as a clear reason for applying. But the sprawling national firm, which offers training contracts in a whopping 12 offices across the UK, also has a strong business services arm,  which includes corporate, commercial and real estate divisions and the ‘quality of work is excellent’. The people featured heavily in the Irwin Mitchell feedback; they’re ‘extremely approachable’ but also have trainee development at heart. Trainees feel that ‘the quality of work given to help us develop is great’. Recruits are routinely ‘provided with a lot of supervision and support from various levels within our team, and are given a lot of opportunities to get involved in a variety of work’. The Irwin Mitchell ‘training contract is well structured’; trainees ‘know their seats in good time and the professional skills course is neatly organised’. The work/life balance is good too, with respondents reporting ‘generally leaving the office earlier than trainees at other firms’. The trade-off, for some respondents anyway, is the pay and the perceived lack of benefits. Best moments included ‘attending a client networking lunch, representing the firm and discussing the services we can offer’, and ‘completing a large private equity deal with my team’. To work at a firm which is at the top of its game in specialist areas of law, where the ‘work is of really good quality and there are loads of learning opportunities’, research Irwin Mitchell.

A day in the life of... Katie Parker , Sheffield Business Trainee

Departments to date: Restructuring and insolvency, Employment

University: The University of Sheffield

Degree: Law 2:1

8.30am: I park my car and head into our Sheffield office. I choose to park a ten-minute walk away from the office so I can have some fresh air and get some steps in before my working day starts.

8.40am: I arrive at the office and make my way to my desk. As we work flexibly at Irwin Mitchell, we need to book our desks when we go into the office. I have booked my team’s desks in advance to ensure we can all sit together to ensure collaborative working.

8.45am: I review my emails and Microsoft Teams messages to check whether I have any urgent tasks for the day. I have been asked to prepare some materials to accompany a training presentation to a client. The training is on sexual harassment in the workplace and my task is to create a Slido, which is an interactive tool that allows the attendees to answer or ask questions during the training.

9.30am: Where possible, I like to spend the first hour of my day on smaller tasks which can be cleared quickly. This reduces the items in my inbox and allows me to focus on my chunkier tasks for the remainder of the day. This morning, I have received an email from a client requesting a call to discuss some amendments to a contract of employment, so I check mine and my supervisor’s calendars and suggest some suitable times to the client. I also make a phone call to a barrister’s chambers to request quotes and availability for an upcoming preliminary hearing. The purpose of this preliminary hearing is case management, so counsel will be making submissions on the issues which need to be determined, whether the case is suitable for judicial mediation and setting directions. Once I have the quotes and list of available counsel, I send these to my supervisor and make a suggestion as to which counsel we may prefer based on their experience.

10.30am: I head down to the coffee machine with some colleagues. This is a good opportunity to have a chat about what everyone is working on. The employment team is large, and I don’t work with every member of the team, so I enjoy hearing about everyone’s workload and specialisms.

10.40am: My next task is drafting an application for a strike out order on a case where we act for the respondent who is being pursued in the Employment Tribunal by a former employee. We are making this application as the claimant’s claim appears to have no prospects of success. Before I begin drafting, I review the key documents on the file, such as the particulars of claim and grounds of response, as well as any recent correspondence.

11.45am: I have been asked to attend an in-person client meeting with one of my supervisors. We meet with an individual who would like to issue a claim for unfair dismissal against their former employer. I observe my supervisor providing advice on the process, merits of success and enforcement. My supervisor has concerns that the claimant’s legal costs could exceed any potential award and flags this to the individual. I find exposure to client meetings invaluable as I am able to observe how legal and commercial advice intertwine.

12.45pm: Lunch! The Sheffield office is based near a river, so I walk by the river with my colleagues to get some fresh air. I have brought my lunch into work today but cannot resist buying some chocolate from the vending machine.

1.45pm: I have a staff handbook to review this afternoon. This includes various policies that apply to our client’s employees. We have a precedent staff handbook that I use to ensure the policies are legally compliant. After I have updated the policies to ensure they are legally compliant, I review our correspondence with the client to check whether they have any specific objectives. I notice the client would like to be firmer with their offering of time off in lieu, so I amend the policy to require an employee to need to have worked at least 15 minutes of overtime before being able to request time off in lieu.

3.45pm: My supervisor and I have been supporting a client with ACAS Early Conciliation. ACAS must be notified of any employment dispute before a claim is issued and the parties can choose whether they participate in early conciliation. This includes an impartial ACAS conciliator speaking to the parties about their objectives and communicating this between the parties. We have achieved a settlement on this matter, so I draft a COT3 Agreement, which records the settlement.

5.00pm: I go through my inbox to ensure I have completed everything that I needed to for the day and update my to-do list ready for tomorrow. I also check in with my supervisor to ensure there is nothing I can support her on before finishing for the day.

5.20pm: I leave the office slightly earlier than usual as I am the charity representative for the Sheffield Junior Lawyers Division, and we have our monthly meeting this evening. At this meeting, we plan to choose a venue for our Winter Ball and organise a volunteering day for our charity.

About the firm

The firm: Irwin Mitchell are legal and financial experts.

We are one of the UK’s largest full-service law firms with offices in over 18 locations across the UK and can offer you an amazing start in your legal career.

As the leading personal injury and medical negligence practice in the UK, we are supported by a national public law team and the UK’s leading Court of Protection practice.

Our private client offering specialises in family, wills, tax, as well as trusts and estate disputes. Our business teams are composed of established experts, enabling us to collaborate with a diverse clientele on a national and regional level including corporate, litigation, commercial, real estate, and employment, across a variety of industry sectors such as media, retail, manufacturing, and education.

The clients: Puregym, Costa, Nando’s, panel for high-street banks, further education colleges.

The deals: The restructuring and insolvency team advised on a deal which has seen more than 3,000 jobs being saved at a South Yorkshire facilities management and stadium security business; the banking and finance team advised ThinCats on a funding deal; the corporate team advised on a deal which has seen £3.6m invested by YFM Equity Partners into Spotless Water’s innovative self-service ultra pure water (UPW) distribution network; the corporate and banking teams have advised Risk Capital Partners on its recent investment in luxury tour operator Simpson Travel; employment lawyers have been instructed to defend Coventry University at the Court of Appeal; the property team has advised UK property investment and management platform Praxis on acquiring Birmingham’s Brindley place; the asbestos and occupational disease team secured an undisclosed settlement in connection with a client’s mesothelioma diagnosis and death; medical negligence lawyers investigated the death of a girl following her death after a hospital visit; a former British Olympic sprinter, who suffered life-changing injuries in a crash, was supported by our serious injury team; a number of Gaines’ survivors instructed our expert lawyers to help them access the specialist support they require to try and come to terms with the abuse; on behalf of Fredreko Nowak, whose pronouns are they/them, our specialist lawyers argued that the failure to investigate the serious sexual offences they reported amounted to a breach of their rights under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights; human rights lawyers have supported the mum of a teenager who died after spending five months on a psychiatric intensive care unit.

Managing partner: Craig Marshall

Other offices: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Chichester, Gatwick, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Reading, Sheffield,Southampton.

Who we are: Irwin Mitchell are legal and financial experts that care – whether it’s individual or business clients.

Founded in 1912, we’ve grown from a small building in Sheffield to being recognised as one of the UK’s largest full-service law firms. We have offices in over 18 locations across the UK and with over 3,000 staff and a variety of legal services, we’ve supported one million clients to date. Our vast experience and knowledge are complemented by our dedicated approach to client care.

What we do: We work with individual and business clients and take the time to understand what matters most to them to deliver exceptional outcomes.

What we’re looking for: Trainees need to be flexible in their approach to everything, be resilient to change, and have a drive to solve problems.

What you’ll do: As a trainee you will work on challenging and complex tasks with a wide range of our clients on critical cases, deals and projects. Our training approach allows trainees to specialise in legal services for individuals or business and gain knowledge and skills across complementary areas of law.

Perks : 25 days’ holiday and buying scheme, health plan, recognition scheme, two volunteering days a year, sports team sponsorship, season ticket loan, contributory pension scheme, death in service cover, critical illness cover, Flexible by Choice scheme.

Sponsorship

From 2024 we began the transition to the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). If your application is successful (and you haven’t already completed the LPC), we will meet all the fees associated with your SQE and, if applicable, your PGDL if you have not started or completed your studies when offered a training contract. For your PGDL we also provide a maintenance grant of £1,000 per month of full-time study to help you through your course. The SQE will be completed as part of a Graduate Solicitor Apprenticeship scheme and therefore will be part of your training contract, with one day a week of your training contract for study leave.

Tips from the recruiter

1. Do your research about the firm and show your passion for the type of work we do.
2. Understand your motivations for wanting to apply and convey them convincingly.
3. Consider what you have done/will do to grow and develop your career at Irwin Mitchell.

Diversity and inclusion