Training Contract - London | A&O Shearman careers

Experience a career without limits

Our training contracts are designed to continually help you evolve and reach your full potential. At our firm, you’ll find your strengths, overcome challenges and bring out the best in yourself - all to become a first-class lawyer.

Programme overview

What you’ll gain

We’re a leading firm of first-class lawyers, a place that makes sure you get the best support so you can do your best work. At A&O Shearman, you can join our tightly connected international community, with unparalleled strength and depth. With our training contract, we are giving you the opportunity to learn from exceptional professionals, while earning a competitive salary, so you can reach your full potential and become a successful commercial solicitor.

What you will do

Your training will be based on four six-month rotations (known as ‘seats’), through a number of departments or practice areas. Seats are available across our practice areas and will help you to discover the full range of work we do and the expertise we have in our teams. In each seat, you will sit with a partner or an associate who will supervise your professional and personal development, showing you how to excel as a successful commercial lawyer.

Our dedicated early careers HR team will work with you to determine your seat choices. You will have the opportunity to express your preferences so you can spend time in the areas that suit you best (subject to business need). Our core areas of expertise are finance, corporate, disputes and ENRI (energy, natural resources and infrastructure). You will also explore the possibility of spending a seat on an international or client secondment, which will give you the chance to grow and strengthen your network.

You’ll also gain contentious experience, either by spending a seat in one of our disputes practice groups or, for those who do not sit in a disputes seat, by completing a litigation course and obtaining contentious experience via legal advice clinics. The litigation course is run by Nottingham Law School and consists of five days’ tuition; regular visits to a legal advice centre take place throughout the training contract, to help you gain practical contentious experience and provide valuable pro bono help.

Growth and development

We offer exceptional professional and personal development. In every seat of the training contract, you have mentors and other dedicated points of contact to ensure that you receive the best pastoral care possible.

Training and support

Your development is one of our key priorities and you’ll see that every day you are with us. In each seat, you will sit with a partner or associate who will provide you with support and guidance and you will immediately take an active and practical role in the department’s work, with plenty of individual roles along the way. You can expect to take on real responsibility, with tailored support, while also enjoying a wider support network of fellow trainees to swap learnings and share the experience with.

In addition to learning practical skills such as drafting, transaction management, research and legal and office procedures, the experience you gain as a trainee will develop your professional conduct, particularly with respect to negotiation and communication with clients and colleagues.

Alongside your departmental work, you will have the opportunity to work side by side and learn from some of the world’s top lawyers. As well as regular departmental training and updates (specific to your seat), you can attend client seminars delivered by our partners and associates on the most cutting-edge issues affecting our industry. You will also attend wider skills training and a range of seminars and talks on matters essential to A&O Shearman, which include mental health and well-being and diversity and inclusion.

Training does not stop at qualification. We are proud of our position as pioneers in the legal industry and our commitment to continuous learning is a key part in maintaining it. At key points during your associate career, you will become eligible to attend the different stages of our bespoke global associate development programme, where you will be joined by colleagues from around the world. These sessions are run by internal and external experts, focusing on developing your strategic and commercial awareness and your ability to work effectively and with resilience. As you progress, the focus on managing client relationships and building a practice increases.

More reasons to apply

The best way to learn is from real-world experience. Even in the early stages of your career, you will be given genuine responsibility on client projects. That means that as a trainee you will be making real contributions to real, globally-impacting projects.

You will collaborate with senior lawyers, benefiting from the combination of support and autonomy needed to grow quickly and sustainably. Training and guidance is always available if you’re unsure of something, but you’ll also be trusted to use your initiative to deliver innovative solutions on client matters.

With A&O Shearman, you’ll be given the support to help you excel while making an impact on work that matters.

Programme details

Academic qualifications

We’re able to welcome graduates from all universities with any degree.

Our academic requirements are AAB (136 UCAS points) or equivalent at A-Level and on track for/achieved a 2:1 undergraduate degree. We also require seven GCSEs at grade 6 or above (including Maths and English). We do take into account mitigating circumstances.

Personal skills

Ambition, collaboration, critical thinking, innovation, passion.

Salary

Year one: GBP56,000 p.a.
Year two: GBP61,000 p.a.
NQ: GBP150,000 p.a.

Application window

Applications open: Monday 1st September 2026
Applications close: Monday 5th October 2026

Start dates

March 2028

"We’ll give you an outstanding legal and business grounding within a culture that supports your development, values your individuality and enables you to excel."
James Partridge EARLY CAREERS RECRUITMENT PARTNER AND TRAINING PRINCIPAL

Skills to succeed

Ambition: You’re determined to achieve a first-class legal career and tackle challenges along the way.
Collaboration: You work well with others and have an open mind to different ideas and new perspectives.
Critical thinking: You have an analytical mind and like to consider all available facts, evidence and arguments before making decisions.
Innovation: You’re prepared and able to adapt to and are curious about tech and industry innovations.
Passion: We welcome applications from all graduates who are passionate about commercial law and innovation, regardless of the university they attended or the degree they earned.

Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)

The route to qualification as a solicitor in England and Wales has changed. The SQE is a new compulsory assessment which took effect from September 1, 2021 and ultimately replaces the current route to qualification.

Trainees joining A&O Shearman from September 2024 onwards will train via the SQE route. Please see below for further information about our SQE transition plans. Further information about the SQE is available on the SRA website.

People working together in a professional office environment

Law school

Postgraduate Diploma in Law (PGDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) Preparation Course (if joining A&O Shearman from September 2024 onwards).

We have selected BPP University Law School as our law school partner to ensure you arrive here with the best possible grounding in legal knowledge and skills and are ready to start working with our clients.

Two colleagues engaged in conversation outside of the office.

PGDL

As a non-law graduate your training contract with us will be exactly the same as for a law graduate. However, your route to qualification will be slightly different, as you will have to study for the Postgraduate Diploma in Law (PGDL) at BPP Law School.

Those who have completed a law degree in an international jurisdiction that is not recognised as a qualifying law degree by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority will also need to complete some or all of the PGDL (although no longer a regulatory requirement, this also applies for those qualifying via SQE). This includes those who studied a law degree in Scotland and Ireland and did not study the necessary modules as part of their degree.

The PGDL is an eight-month full-time course designed to teach you key skills and the foundations of law before you join those who already have a law degree. The PGDL is also available part-time, but we ask that you complete the full-time course, unless agreed otherwise.

For details on financial support during the PGDL, please see our rewards and benefits section.

A professional looking out of the office window.

Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)

As above, a new approach to qualification for all prospective lawyers in England and Wales took effect from September 2021. Trainees joining A&O Shearman from September 2024 onwards will train via the SQE.

We have worked closely with BPP to design our new SQE preparation programme. This is a 12-month course which will provide trainees with the optimum preparation to pass the centralised SQE1 and SQE2 assessments (which are run on behalf of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) by Kaplan). The course includes a bespoke ‘Essentials for Practice’ programme, giving you the opportunity to gain the legal knowledge and skills required to best prepare you for the SQE assessments and beyond. In addition, although it’s no longer a regulatory requirement, we will still require non-law graduates to study the PGDL in advance of the SQE preparatory course. Further information is available here.

Further information about the topics assessed in SQE1 and SQE2, and a detailed breakdown of how the exam and its assessments are structured, is available on the SRA’s SQE assessment website here.

Cases that made me

At A&O Shearman, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global community of world-class lawyers and work on building enduring relationships with clients, rewarding assignments and career-defining cases. Hear from our people as they tell us the story of their career through the cases that challenged them, marked new levels of responsibility or were just exciting to be a part of.

Hervé Ekué

Hervé shares three of the cases that have shaped his journey, from specialising in debt capital markets and derivatives through to becoming global managing partner of the firm. Hear the cases that define a hugely successful career in global law.

Jan Skuhravy

Jan, a partner in Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure, was always interested in how the law intersected with the tangible realities of life. Listen to Jan share what he’s learnt throughout his career.

Sarah Henchoz

At A&O Shearman, you work on cases that define the world. Sarah walks us through some of the most complex and exciting cases of her career, including a reality TV star’s employment, a high-stakes poaching case, and a large-scale discrimination case.

Application process

Online application

You will be required to submit an online application which details your work and education history.

Assessment

You will then be sent an email which will contain a link to complete our online experience, which includes situational judgement questions, verbal and numerical reasoning items and two short motivation questions to complete via video. The online experience is untimed and should take around 45 minutes.

You will need to complete your application and online experience ahead of deadline.

You can read our preparation tips on Situational Judgement Tests or take a practice test.

Interviews

If your application is successful, the next stage will be an assessment day comprising two one-on-one interviews.

The first interview is based on a commercial case study, where you’ll have time to work through a brief and prepare a short presentation to deliver to your interviewer. This will be followed by a discussion on the key points from the case study.

In the second interview, you will be asked a series of questions based on scenarios you may encounter as a trainee.

Offer

After your interviews, we will review your performance and aim to get back to you with a decision as quickly as possible.

Regardless of the outcome, we’re committed to providing constructive feedback on your interview performance to help you going forward in your career.

A word of caution

There are a number of websites purporting to provide free samples of A&O Shearman application forms and assessment questions, including questions from our online experience. A&O Shearman takes cases of plagiarism and copyright extremely seriously.

We strongly caution applicants against using, or paying for, unofficial sources claiming to provide information on the A&O Shearman application process. We encourage every potential candidate to review our website for details of our application process and a sample SJT.