Ulster University

**BELFAST**

**THE OPPORTUNITY**

ROLE OVERVIEW
The Legal Placement Student will work as part of our legal team, working closely with highly experienced senior lawyers on the delivery of client work within the Alternative Legal Services practice group of Herbert Smith Freehills.

The 11 month paid placement will provide you with experience across our Disputes and Transactions teams. Although based in our Belfast office, you will be working as part of a global Alternative Legal Services (ALT) team.

During your placement, you will encouraged to participate in our network of Committees in Belfast which includes Social, Charity, Arts and Business, Diversity (including IRIS), Women in Business and Sports.

Key Responsibilities:
Conducting work in accordance with the practice area. During your Disputes seat this will be under the supervision of senior Disputes lawyers and during your Transaction seat this will be under the supervision of senior lawyers from Corporate / Funds or Real Estate, on large-scale matters. This may include but is not limited to: document review, working as part of a team (there will be target average daily chargeable hours).
Maintaining an up-to-date knowledge of relevant areas of law to the Alternative Legal Services Disputes practice.

Ensuring compliance with financial disciplines on matters (e.g. daily time-recording).
The responsibilities outlined above cannot totally encompass or define all tasks that may be required of the post-holder. The outline of responsibilities given above may, therefore, vary from time to time without materially changing either the character or level of responsibility or grade.

**SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS**
- QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS
- Essential
- Current full-time year 2 law undergraduate from Ulster University, with a minimum of 3 A levels (ideally B grades and above), demonstrating strong academic performance in Year 1.
- Ability to review, analyse and organise documentary and factual evidence.
- Excellent attention to detail; aims to get it right first time.

Desirable
- Fluency in a second language with an ability to translate legal documents into English. Western European languages are an advantage, but other languages (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean or Russian) are especially desirable.

Applications close at 5pm on Friday 15th December 2023.

**GROUP / TEAM**

Graduates

**LOCATION DESCRIPTION**

The decision to open an office in Belfast was driven by a wish to further enhance what is already a pre-eminent global dispute resolution practice. We have recruited a number of highly capable lawyers and legal assistants to work closely with the London team to manage the major international litigation and arbitration cases that the firm is famous for. The focus of the team is the documentary analysis critical to the investigation of matters and cases. Our offering in Belfast further enhances the quality and efficiency of our service and price competitiveness to clients.

**ABOUT US**

Herbert Smith Freehills is one of the world’s leading professional services businesses, bringing together the best people across our 27 offices, to meet our clients legal services needs globally. We are constantly looking for ways to innovate to meet our clients' needs and, in developing our Alternative Legal Services practice group, have built a global offering which delivers high-quality, cost-effective legal services for document or information-intensive, defined process work.

Alternative Legal Services (ALT) is a fully-integrated and integral part of Herbert Smith Freehills’ internal network. Our global team of more than 350 lawyers, legal analysts and technologists operates across the firm's international network with offices in Belfast, Beijing, Brisbane, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Perth, Shanghai, Sydney and New York. Our presence across time zones means that we can support matters for clients across the globe in a wide range of industry sectors. Our value proposition recognises that the success of our business and our clients relies on the skills, knowledge and ideas of all our people.

**CONTRACT TYPE**

Fixed Term Contract

**START YEAR**

2024

**DIVERSITY & INCLUSION**

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
At Herbert Smith Freehills you will be part of a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus and highly engaged people are our differentiator. People at our firm come from a range of backgrounds and bring a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to their work with us. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means you feel valued and able to perform at your best by being your authentic self at work. We know that our future success not only depends on being innovative and progressive in the changing legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling highly engaged in meaningful work.

We understand that you have commitments and personal interests outside of work and we strive to create a worki