Apprenticeship seats at Cripps

As a legal apprentice at Cripps you will move around various seats to further your legal knowledge and gain new skills.  In this post, we have described some of the teams an apprentice will sit with and what tasks you may be given.

Private client

Our private client practice area is divided into several teams including residential conveyancing, specialist disputes, family, private wealth and probate.  The work is varied but can include dealing with divorces, professional negligence claims, drafting Wills, and dealing with estate administration.  The teams work with a mixture of clients including high net worth individuals.  An apprentice in this division will get involved in client meetings, mediations, drafting legal documents and assisting clients.

Hannah Glover who supervises apprentices in the private wealth team commented, “having an apprentice in the team is a fantastic asset.  They provide valuable support to a wide range of lawyers and secretaries.  In turn, this means they gain experience in a full range of private wealth legal work including Wills, estate planning, probate and trusts”

Residential conveyancing

Our residential conveyancing team is part of our private client practice.  The team deal with house sales and purchases, transfers of ownership, leases and other property related transactions.  Apprentices in this team play a vital part in a variety of transactions and will experience a lot of client facing work.  The tasks can range from responding to enquiries, drafting a mortgage report and reporting to clients.

Verity Hubble who supervises apprentices in the residential team has said, “residential property is a unique seat in terms of the volume of work and the level of client contact and it is lovely having an extra pair of hands.”

Corporate

Our corporate practice deals with buying and selling companies as well as all the legal issues that arise for large and small businesses.  Tasks that a legal apprentice may carry out are drafting legal documents, completing Companies House forms and attending client meetings.

Lauren Romo who assists with apprentices in corporate has said, “all of our apprentices are hardworking and enthusiastic. Our personalised approach to training means that we nurture their professional and personal development by teaching the foundations of Corporate law. When the Paralegal Apprentices leave our team they have a broad range of corporate knowledge, an understanding of buying and selling companies and they assist on a transaction from start to finish. A Paralegal Apprentice will be embedded within our Transactional Services Team where they can enhance their legal technology skills by incorporating market-leading tech in their day to day activities. Working with our Paralegal Apprentices is very rewarding and we find through hard work from both sides, we are organically growing future lawyers.”

Real estate

At Cripps, our real estate practice is one of the largest in the UK.

It is split into several teams and deals with areas such as buying and selling of commercial property, planning, construction and property disputes. Typical tasks of an apprentice include drafting leases, 1954 Landlord and Tenant Act documents, letters, notices and emails to clients and other solicitors.

Emily Wright commented, “the apprentices work as part of the team assisting with all aspects of our real estate work. They can be involved in drafting and negotiating documents, speaking to clients, organising deeds and getting involved with projects.”

Post completion

Our post completion team deal with post completion formalities after transactions have completed from both our residential conveyancing and commercial real estate teams.  This can include registering new ownership, registering leases and helping with land registry requisitions.  Apprentices in the team will initially learn how to close files, organise incoming post and become familiar with an array of legal documents.

Sarah Porter who heads up the post completion team has said, “supervising an apprentice is incredibly rewarding because you can experience their growth and understanding on a week to week basis.  It is so satisfying when a task is undertaken; questions are asked and they work confidently without supervision.” 

If this is something that you think you would enjoy, the recruitment window for our paralegal apprenticeship scheme is now open!  Find out more about the paralegal apprenticeship scheme and apply now.

Join us

At Cripps, we understand the importance of investing in our junior lawyers and have programmes to suit everyone. Find out more on our graduates and students page.