Russell-Cooke - True Picture

Russell-Cooke training contract review 2026

The Firm

We know it can be tough to ignore the stereotypes surrounding what it takes to score a training contract. “I had spent a long time thinking because I hadn’t been to an Oxbridge or Russell group uni, that law wasn’t accessible to people like me,” admitted one trainee. However, they soon realised this stereotype doesn’t always ring true: “Russell-Cooke had a really diverse background in terms of what people had done before. There were lots of different experiences across the firm, this was a green light for me.” Indeed, many pointed out that the firm takes on quite a few career changers too, valuing those with some previous work experience.

“Being in a City law firm, it’s quite unusual that we have those diverse practice areas and work/life balance.”

All of this made for a refreshing break from the stereotypes of many a London based law firm, and where Russell-Cooke calls home is no exception. Though there is one office in Central London, the other two locations can be found out in the greener west localities of Kingston and Putney. As one rookie put it: “I think it’s a nice balance between good work, full range of practice areas but it’s not like a pressure cooker which you hear about with other City firms, where people sleep in the office, etc. It’s not that sort of workplace.”

It was this reputation for work/life balance that also attracted interviewees. Coupled with the chance to sample high-quality work across a range of practice areas, insiders thought the firm was cooking up a recipe for success. “I didn’t know where I wanted to qualify,” one source shared, “but here, I could do real estate, private client, criminal and personal injury. Being in a City law firm, it’s quite unusual that we have those diverse practice areas and work/life balance.”

Speaking of practices, our sister guide Chambers UK dishes out top marks for the firm’s work in family/children law and real estate in the city. And the final ingredient for success? A small trainee intake, which means “working closer to fee-earners and doing tasks with more responsibility.”

The Seats

A trainee’s first seat is determined based on business need. For the following rotations, trainees get a chance to express their preferences during a mid-seat conversation with the grad rec partner. There are no guarantees you’ll get all of your choices, as not every department takes a trainee every rotation, but “the further into the training contract you are, the more preference you get. It’s generally fair in that sense.”

There are no compulsory seats on the TC, but we heard it’s common for trainees to do a stint in property, given it’s one of the firm’s largest departments. “They want us to get that experience in property law because it can be relevant wherever you end up,” noted one rookie.

The real estate department is one of the firm’s larger teams and is split across the Bedford Row and Putney offices. They handle mostly commercial property for commercial buyers, sellers or tenants, but the group also handles real estate finance and construction and planning work too. Under the commercial side, the landlords tend to be entities with “large property portfolios for which we would manage a lot of their transactional work,” which includes handling a lot of leases and licences.

In practice, trainees worked on tasks like filling out a transfer form or responding to requisitions from the Land Registry then “by the time you get to your fourth or fifth month hopefully there will be a small value transaction they’ll expect you to run with supervision.” All this made for a great seat experience as “you are learning to progress and build your confidence as you go through.” Because the team is large, “you get to work with lots of people, lots of different types of learning.” This means that trainees “learn a lot about client service, not just applying the law, but adding client value.”

The department works with many repeat clients and, while some clients have large portfolios, the full range is from “national shops and local chains to work for small business owners and entrepreneurs.” The firm recently advised Soho Theatre Company on opening a new 1,000 seat venue in Walthamstow which will host comedy, theatre and cabaret. 

“It’s very unique that the firm still does legal aid work among similarly sized firms.”

Closely interacting with the real estate department, but a fairly large group in its own right, is the property and housing litigation team which is spread across the Putney and Bedford Row offices. As the name suggests, the work is largely split between property and housing matters. As one insider reflected, “I always stress that it’s a really good opportunity to be in this seat as a trainee because it’s almost like getting two different seats in one.”

The commercial property side handles landlord and tenant work and has “some really big landlord clients,” but trainees can also work with the housing team which does legal aid: “defending illegal evictions, disrepair, that kind of thing.” As another source highlighted, “it’s very unique that the firm still does legal aid work among similarly sized firms.” Of course, in a contentious seat, “you expect to be organising documents, bundling,” but rookies also told us that they were able to get stuck into the more interesting stuff like drafting, attending court, client meetings, researching points of law and attending conferences.

The charities team is also one of the bigger teams in the firm, with about 60/70 lawyers.One source described it like being a bit of “a firm within a firm because it really gives all of the services to charities, for any legal need they have.” For instance, they work across different areas of law, such as governance, property and employment. As a result, “you get to know the clients really well.”

Generally, the work here is transactional, rather than litigious, so sources noted that “you have more time to work on things” without the tight deadlines which are typically associated with litigious work. Training was said to be a priority here,so though there’s a bit of admin to do, we heard seniors “teach and guide but also delegate responsibility and let trainees run with matters.” Trainees also get to attend client meetings and do “substantial drafting.” To top it off, the clients are “all lovely because they’re charities, so I had a really good time!”

What trainees get up to in a seat in the family team “depends what inquiries are coming in,” so each of our interviewee’s experiences looked a little different. Broadly, the department works on a range of matters including prenups, postnups, divorce and finances and children. A separate public law team, based in Kingston, handles public children work, “so that means if you do a seat in family at Russell-Cooke, you won’t get any experience of public work.”

Because there are quite a few mediators in the team, sources got the chance to attend mediations as well as attend court where the opportunity was available. Regardless of what matter they were on, our insiders described plenty of client contact as a consistent feature of their time here. It is worth noting that the level of responsibility is a little lower than other seats, due to the sensitive nature of the work. But overall, “I loved it!” quipped one interviewee, adding that: “It’s been my favourite seat so far actually because I was just allowed to get really stuck into cases.”

Private client is another of the firm’s larger teams, having lawyers in all three offices. The department is mainly split into lifetime matters (drafting wills and lasting powers of attorney, and creating trusts) and probate. These kinds of matters make for “a lot of heavy admin tasks and forms,” but this also comes with a lot of client contact, such as in-person meetings with clients who “come in to take instructions on their wills.”

For one trainee, it was nice to get to meet clients as “you’re much more involved in someone’s life if you’re doing a will than a lease.” Sources described the workload as manageable, as the department is “not chucking you in at the deep end” even though some admitted working on these sorts of matters sometimes felt a little like “like learning a different language to commercial legal work.”

Trainee Life

Trainees need to be in the office four days a week. Some departments have teams in all three offices, whereas others are based in just one or two. Trainees “should expect to do seats in at least two and sometimes all three. Putney is the biggest office, so you will probably spend most of your TC at Putney,” explained one trainee.  But the main takeaway? “If you sign up to a TC at Russell-Cooke, be prepared to work at any of the offices.”

This was a nice feature for our sources, as each office also comes with its own unique perks. The Kingston office is in a “super nice location right by the river with a veranda you can have drinks on in the evening.” The Bedford Row offices are situated in Holborn, close to Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn and the Royal Courts of Justice, so being there “feels like the centre of legal London where there is a nice buzz.” That office is actually split between two sites: “the original one and a newer office.”

Speaking about the older of the two sites, one source told us, “I’m a big fan of the Holborn office, it’s a listed building. I love it." The firm is “trying to do quite a bit about corporate responsibility for the environment,” a prime example being the beehives on the roof of the Putney office from which the firm makes its own honey, making Bedford Row not the only office with a bit of a buzz…

While the offices makes for nice working spaces, late hours were not encouraged at the firm. Several sources told us that seniors will check in on trainees and encourage them to go home if they see any of them working past 6/7pm. Obviously, it was noted that “if you’re at a crunch point, you’re expected to deliver and get work done, but there isn’t this routine culture of you must be in the office at 9/10/11pm at night. It’s very weird for people to be in the office at that time.”

This reflected in attitudes towards pay. One source told us that, “I think it’s fair considering I’m never expected to work late.” Though another did add that “there isn’t much pay transparency when you qualify,” which reflected the consensus amongst our interviewees. One insider elaborated: “We have no idea what your salary would be in different departments; for some people that would make it hard to know where to qualify.”

“Everything has been positive, that goes from things like the supervisors to the type of work I do, the hours, everything has been spot on.”

“I’ve felt as a trainee you’re not on the outside, you’re spoken to in the same way as associates,” led one trainee when asked about firm culture. In fact, all sources had nothing but good things to report back on this topic. “It’s very friendly here, people are nice and we get on, teams are generally quite close, and partners are very approachable,” added another insider. The warm feelings towards culture extended beyond just having nice colleagues, as one trainee put it: “Everything has been positive, that goes from things like the supervisors to the type of work I do, the hours, everything has been spot on.”

We were told there are three main social events every year, which include a firm-wide party in February, the summer party and a quiz in November. There are also interdepartmental events to get to know colleagues in other teams. Trainees themselves have a budget for socials which take place every couple of months, typically involved some sort of informal drinks down the pub. Though some recent specific examples included wine tasting and go-karting.

Training is primarily on the job, but each department hosts its own internal training sessions. For example, there are litigation know-how trainings roughly once a month, alongside soft skills and wellbeing training. Internal training sessions are compulsory for trainees, as “you get a better idea of what other departments do and the technical details.” Trainees reported their supervisors (either partners or associates) taking a lot of time to chat with them and review their work.

Moreover, there is an open-door policy with the partners at the firm, “it’s a literal policy, the door is open unless they’re in a particularly sensitive meeting or something like that,” one insider told us. Another added that “they’re actually invested in training you and supervising you. You don’t feel like you’re just a big drag on their time.” Mid-seat and end-of-seat reviews are “pretty similar,” as both involve discussion about “what went well in this seat and what could be better. The processworks both ways, we give feedback on what we liked and didn’t like as well.”

While trainees don’t tend to get involved in pro bono, they told us that “we do legal aid in our criminal team and property litigation team, so I guess we’re doing pro bono in practice.” The charities team itself does some work for reduced rates which is “not specifically classed as pro bono but materially that’s what it is.” There’s also a charity committee and a specific trainee charity committee which participate in events such as the Kingston Hospital Gift Appeal.

When qualification comes round, trainees are “encouraged to indicate an interest in a seat once you finish if you like it” by having conversations with partners. A list of available positions is published in spring and interviews if multiple trainees go for the same position. In 2025, Russell-Cooke retained ten of twelve qualifiers.

How to get a Russell-Cooke training contract

The application stage

The application stage could be the hardest part of getting a Russell-Cooke interview. “Candidates have to find a way to stand out when we are sifting hundreds of applications down to just 60 or so for a first interview,” explains Jemma Pollock, Training Principal. The firm includes some narrative questions to give candidates the chance to give an insight into their personality and previous experience. Pollock’s best advice would be to “include something interesting which shows us who you are as a person and why you would be a good fit for our firm in particular. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s relevant to the law – a long-term hobby or sporting talent can show commitment, hard work and time management as much as legal work experience does.”

Candidates are then invited to a remote first interview with a Senior Associate and if successful from that round, will go on to either one of the firm’s vacation scheme weeks or a training contract assessment day. There are 16 places on the vacation scheme (8 per week) and 12 places on the training contract days (6 per day).

The vacation scheme

The firm’s vacation scheme is one week long and is designed for the candidate to get to know the firm as much as for the firm to get to know the candidate! Each candidate will spend time in two different departments and is supervised by a Senior Associate, who manages their week, arranges and supervises work, and can answer any questions. “We try to give our vacation scheme students a real insight into working at our firm and our culture,” explains Pollock, “so they undertake real work, attend court hearings and client meetings, and often get the opportunity to join in with networking events or team socials.” As well as all the fun stuff, it’s important to remember that the week is also part of the application for a training contract, so it includes elements from the firm’s assessment days and finishes with an interview with Pollock, the firm’s head of people, and another partner in the firm.

“The training contract assessment days have a busy timetable!” says Pollock. “That is mainly because we try to give our candidates the chance to get to know the firm as well as completing the assessments, all within just one day!” The tasks include a letter writing exercise and a group discussion session, and the day finishes with an interview with the same panel as the vacation scheme candidates. Don’t worry too much about the interview section though. As Pollock tells us, “an interview sounds very formal, but it is only around 20 minutes and allows us to chat with the candidate on a 1:1 basis as well as giving them the chance to ask any questions.” The day isn’t all assessments either, with candidates joining current trainees for lunch, and getting a tour of the firm’s Putney office!

Trainee profile

In terms of what the firm are looking for in a trainee, Pollock tells us that “there really is not a set ‘Russell-Cooke’ type or criteria that we assess against.” The firm use the RARE recruitment tool to support its focus on diversity and social mobility. “On a general note, of course many candidates have done a law degree but we also actively encourage candidates who are coming to law as a second career or from a non-traditional background,” says Pollock. Within the firm’s recent trainees, you’ll find an ex-English lecturer; former professional rugby player; a paramedic and a journalist! Take Pollock’s advice here: “at interview we are looking for people who are confident in themselves and what they can bring, can draw on their skills and experience form their background (whatever those are) and are keen to learn, take responsibility and work hard in their careers.”