DLA Piper training contract review 2024
The Firm
What green flags do you look for in a person? Someone who’s nice to the waiter and always gets a round in at the pub? Good taste in memes? Fresh breath? The bar out there may be low, but it shouldn’t be when you’re choosing a law firm. “The people were the standout reason that DLA Piper was my number one choice,” one trainee told us. “You are very well supported and can make friends all over the firm.” The firm has seven offices in the UK, but with over 90 bases in total spanning 40 countries, “DLA is known not only nationally, but internationally.” And it could probably start a pretty mean flag collection. But let’s start with the green ones.
First up, one interviewee felt that "if you go to other firms, you become a corporate lawyer by default. I wanted a full-service firm.” DLA Piper isn’t the only full-service option out there, but when combined with the fact that “it could offer international reach and high-quality work in the regions,” trainees’ interest was more than piqued. Of the 75 or so who are recruited each year, over a third join the London office, and about a fifth take up residence in Leeds. The remaining newbies are sprinkled across the firm’s bases in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield.Interestingly, a few trainees had either joined the firm after paralegalling for a stint, or they went through the firm’s solicitor apprenticeship programme.
“The international secondments are the highlight.”
And now for the green bunting. According to Chambers Global, DLA Piper is a global market leader in franchising and outsourcing, and it has a staggering number of rankings from Chambers UK. It’s particularly strong in the Northwest and Yorkshire, with top prizes in both regions for litigation, banking and finance, corporate/M&A and private equity (mid-market) and IT – these last two practices are also areas of strength for the London office. Nationally, the firm comes out top for its work with retail clients and investor representation in investment funds. There are dozens of additional regional rankings – like IP in Yorkshire and real estate litigation in the Northeast – but for a full breakdown, head to chambers.com.
The Seats
In the seat allocation process, trainees rank their top three seat choices at each rotation, but with so many trainees to accommodate within the firm’s business needs, many felt “it’s luck of the draw” as to whether you can get what you want. “You apply knowing that you are not going to be prioritised over a 3rd or 4th seater – unless the seat is unpopular.” You can be sure that won’t be IP, which “has over 50 people fighting over it every six months!”
Secondments are also allocated through this process, so “it can be very competitive – the international secondments are the highlight and why people come to the firm.” In the last year, the firm has reopened its regular spots in places like Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, and Dublin. Seats are occasionally available in Brussels and Amsterdam too. However, trainees reckoned that around 60% of the secondment opportunities were here in the UK with clients. One lucky former secondee said their client secondment was “wild! I felt like I was operating at senior associate level,” dealing with “contracts in thousands and thousands of pounds.”
Back in the firm, litigation and regulation work covers investigations, commercial litigation and arbitrations, with specialist work in aviation, environment, cybersecurity, health and safety and IP. The type of work you get involved in as a junior can be “potluck” depending on supervisors. “I was given full matters to run alone, such as small-claim court work,” said one trainee who’d worked on the commercial litigation side. “I got great experience in drafting things alone, keeping track of the whole matter, and chatting with clients.” In the bigger cases, trainees' typical tasks were drafting court documents and witness statements. The firm recently firm represented Uber in a class action brought by approximately 15,000 drivers regarding their worker status. Sports fans will be interested to learn that the Football Association is also a client of the firm – DLA acted for the FA in a $213 million claim against PPLive, the Premier League’s former broadcasting partner in China. For some sub-groups like aviation, “the team is top-heavy due to the specialism” (i.e. there are more partners and senior associates than juniors) and found they were “supporting seniors by coordinating documentation for trials and completing research tasks.” Aviation clients include insurers like Allianz, and major airlines like British Airways, Emirates and easyJet.
“It was a lot of reading through old emails, like CSI stuff!”
For those who want transactional work, DLA’s corporate practice handles mid-market M&A and private equity and funds. There’s also a fair share of capital markets and IPO work, as well as a corporate insurance piece. In its M&A work, the team typically acts for buyers, like in Shell’s recent acquisitions of Daystar Power and Nature Energy Biogas. “Each office generates its own workstream,” trainees explained. In Manchester, the team advised TalkTalk on its acquisition of Virtual1, a network provider. Down in London, the corporate team advised Warner Bros on its joint venture with BT to move BT Sports onto Warner Bros Discovery in the UK and Ireland. “I had responsibility with drafting things like share purchase agreements, dealing with opposing teams, and sometimes running smaller transactions.”It’s a “very technical and fact-paced” seat, said trainees, with “a high-energy team and loads of socials with clients!” There’s also a corporate crime team in London, which advises clients on compliance and handles investigations into bribery, money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and sanctions – “it was a lot of reading through old emails, like CSI stuff!” Pretty cool!
Many trainees will spend a stint with the real estate team, which is one of the firm’s biggest. In this seat, “you work with development teams, builders, and project managers, who tend to be more chill than corporate!” Some of the trainees worked on matters like pub leases, plot sales and rent reviews, while also playing a supporting role on big transactions of land, and developments of hospitals, shopping centres and housing. The team recently advised Longfellow Real Estate Partners on a £1.5 billion joint venture with investors, which aims to focus on life sciences developments in Cambridge, Oxford and London. Further north, the team acted for the University of Sheffield on a number of sites for research and innovation centres, which involved negotiating with the Welsh government for one site in Broughton, Flintshire. On the contentious side, the firm sees a lot of landlord/tenant disputes. Day to day life for trainees saw them “running low matters like licenses, which are minor but important to the firm.” One interviewees also found that “I had a bit more control and development over my skills that I haven’t got from other transactional groups.”
Keeping it transactional, the projects seat was a popular one. The team is split into public procurement and project finance. The public procurement side pertains to government contracts for large infrastructure projects, known as public-private partnerships (or PPP for short). Transport work features heavily here – think rail franchise agreements, bus services, and general transport regulatory advice. For the last six years, the firm has been advising the Department for Transport on Heathrow’s proposed third runway as part of a multi-billion pound expansion for the airport. There’s also a lot of work in the energy sector, both with renewables (a lot of wind farms in Nordic regions) as well as oil and gas sites, mostly in Africa (a focus of growth for the practice, interviewees observed). Trainees in this seat had opportunities to “run calls with opposing counsel” and “draft loan agreements which is, like, real meaty work!” This kind of work isn’t just centred in the capital – “Leeds has an important global partner, so work comes out of this office too.”
Trainee Life
Whilst the wide range of seat choices enticed some of our interviewees, for it was the firm’s culture that was their cup of tea. “I found everyone I met super approachable, no matter how senior they were!” one Mancunian shared. And across offices, trainees praised the level of support they got from senior colleagues. “As a first seat trainee, fee earners were very patient and willing to take time to discuss and walk through instructions.”
“Lots of outgoing characters.”
Beyond the daily grind, “there’s a great social life. People will stop and chat to you and be genuinely interested in your life outside of work, which is refreshing.” We heard there are “lots of outgoing characters” in the Birmingham office, and “juniors are encouraged to get stuck in.” Among the trainees themselves, “there are a lot of good friendships, and we don’t feel like we are competing with each other. No one has been toxic!” Those in the London cohort – the biggest of the bunch – found it “big enough to create a buzz, and small enough to not just be another number.” These good vibes inevitably led to “events driven by trainees.” One hyped up event was the recent LBGTQ+ drag queen quiz, so if you’re competitive, get studying (and serving!).
A lot of affinity group events are held in London, with trainees reasoning that “people from everywhere are attracted to London, so it tends to be more multicultural, and the events cater to this.” Up in the Manchester office, the mayor recently dropped by for an event during South Asian Heritage Month. The cohort believed that representation at the firm was generally strong. “We actually calculated it,” said one discerning source, “and more than 50% of the cohort is diverse, and more than 60% are women.” One interviewee voiced that “it’s so nice when people come here and see people in a hijab, and people of colour.” Moreover, sources pointed out that by virtue of the firm’s international coverage, “the firm is organically diverse.” However, “in finance, the number of female partners is limited, and the ethnic diversity even more so,” one observed. “I would like to see more female partners so that we have a role model.” Affinity groups at DLA Piper include IRIS (the LBGTQ+ group), Mosaic (the core ethnic diversity group), PACT (the family and carers network), LAW (gender), Enabled (for those with disabilities), a neurodiversity network, and the newly created social mobility group, Horizons.
Trainees across the firm are expected to be in the office 50% of the week, and a few of the bases have had (or are about to have) a bit of a makeover. “The London office is open plan, and we have the whole building to ourselves,” right by the Barbican. We heard they're trialling hotdesking at the minute. Functions and special events are held on the top two floors, which are bedecked with outdoor terraces – “it’s such a unique space.” The regional offices have seen a new lease of life too. “We are moving the Leeds office to a new building next door,” revealed one Loiner. “I can see it being built from the window!”
“Tons of opportunities to do pro bono.”
Trainees from Manchester to Leeds to Birmingham to Edinburgh were pretty chuffed with their salaries (“we get ample for the market”), but there was “disgruntlement in London.”One in the capital felt that the undisclosed NQ pay cheque “looks good on paper, but factoring in long hours and weekend work, it's not fantastic.” Trainees emphasised that hours at the firm very much depended on the seat, rather than their location: “There’s a myth that London works more hours, but the Leeds office also works cross-office with London, so we have no excuse to log off just because we’re in Leeds!” The trainees we spoke to mostly tended to clock off between 7 and 8pm, though some who’d sat in corporate had to work into the early hours to close deals on occasion. According to our survey, trainees worked about 46 hours in the week compared to the market average of 44.
Qualification kicks off with an NQ workshop with the graduate recruitment team. The list of jobs up for grabs is released a week later and trainees are asked to rank their top three choices. To be in with a chance, they need to prep their CVs and collate their end-of-seat reviews into an application package (complete with a headshot). The process is run over four weeks and “communicated fairly quickly.” In 2023, the firm didn't disclose it's retention figures.
