Linklaters - True Picture

Linklaters training contract review 2026

The Firm

It can be hard to compete with a stellar reputation, particularly when you’ve got status as UK royalty, and invariably, that’s exactly what attracted a number of applicants to Linklaters. “I wanted to go to a firm with a good reputation,” led one trainee when asked why they chose the firm.

Of course, we could speak all day about Linklaters’ reputation and status as a member of the magic circle elite, but we’ll leave that to the expertise of our colleagues over on Chambers UK(who decorate the firm with over 20 top-tier awards in practices like capital markets, data protection & information law, energy & natural resources, financial services, infrastructure, private equity, projects and transport, by the way).

“What made Linklaters really stand out was the people and time and effort they were willing to invest in juniors.”

Indeed, a strong reputation doesn’t materialise overnight. It’s cultivated through a steady culture of training and mentorship, and that’s exactly what our sources at Linklaters picked up on. “What made Linklaters really stand out was the people and time and effort they were willing to invest in juniors,” one trainee told us, “People were very willing to spend 30 minutes chatting about what they did, the time they invest into others, and their careers.”

An essential part of the Linklaters’ character is also its weight as an international firm. With 30 offices in 20 countries, chances are you could throw a dart at a map and you would land on a country with Links lawyers. The international nature of the firm is apparent in trainees’ day-to-day, too: “It’s really diverse,” one trainee shared, “I feel like part of the culture. I see myself represented across the firm, even up to partnership.”

The Seats

To assignseats, Linklaters uses an AI algorithm called Ruth which takes into account several factors to try to keep the process fair. Trainees submit their ten ranked preferences into the system then the HR team reviews the output. There are “certain controls,” for example each round each trainee must include a seat in banking, corporate, LAI (litigation, arbitration and investigations), or capital markets. “This is to get people to know the bread and butter of what the firm does but also to manage the allocation,” an interviewee explained. While preferences aren’t guaranteed, all our sources got their top choices at least once.

International secondments are assigned based on performance and visa requirements. Trainees can list their top six secondment preferences, which are organised not just by office but also department, for example investment funds in New York or corporate in Singapore. Secondments are generally reserved for final seaters, and according to one trainee, “There were sufficient secondments that everyone who wants to go on international secondment usually can.” There are also a few client secondments available in each rotation.

The banking department is split into three major branches: restructuring & insolvency, corporate & structured lending (CSL) and leveraged finance. Restructuring & insolvency do company and lender side restructurings, and trainees here are encouraged to get involved in all aspects.Typically, trainees will coordinate with local counsel across multiple jurisdictions and run transactions, “including the administrative things like document lists and preparing pieces of advice for when a company might need to turn to insolvency,” one explained.

Another common task is taking board minutes. This may not immediately sound exciting, but sources explained it allows you to “be in the room with a Fortune 500 company and see them think, problem solve and troubleshoot in real life.” Trainees might also get involved in the team’s advisory and contentious work. “The most fun bits of my work were some bits of drafting,” said one trainee, “which can include the big planning stuff and smaller bits of memos and summaries” for creditors and courts. In recent months, the firm’s work for Thames Water has been making waves in the media. In April, the Court of Appeals upheld the water company’s restructuring plan in the face of challenges.

Linklaters has four different corporategroups, each defined by a code. 105 and 110 do insurance-based and public markets work, 120 focuses on energy & infrastructure while 125 is the private equity financial sponsors group. Trainees in 125 typically draft, prepare and review documents for due diligence reports, run signings and execution processes and are points of contact for the client. “The trainee is usually front and centre in those processes,” an insider explained, “They care a lot about trainees understanding the process and managing transactions.” One major private equity client is the private equity firm Hg; Linklaters has handled multiple tech-related acquisitions on its behalf in recent years.

The energy & infrastructure department handles two main types of work. The first is project financing, meaning helping a company borrow money to finance an energy asset. The second is work for projects that are underway or soon to be underway, so includes drafting construction agreements and handling corporate workstreams. “At its heart, it’s project finance but there’s other add ons as well, with the corporate and construction side,” summarised one interviewee.

A large portion of the work is carbon capture. Because this is a new kind of tech, “the kind of documents that go into those are completely new,” making the work novel and exciting. Other work includes advising Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a part of BlackRock, on its investment in Lanes Group, one of the UK’s largest water and wastewater providers. Trainees generally manage CP checklists and draft board authorisations, formality agreements and legal opinions.

“It feels like you’re actually making change in the market.”

The derivatives and structured products department recently separated into two more distinct sub teams of derivatives & financial markets (DFM) and derivatives structured solutions. The former focuses mainly on fintech and crypto currency. “It’s definitely my favourite seat so far,” said one insider, “I like things that are always changing. Being part of groups of people that are thinking about new laws or new regulation is quite exciting for me. It feels like you’re actually making change in the market.” This includes assisting the industry to provide its opinions on new regulation. “There’s often no precedent for a lot of the work,so it’s not just something where you can copy someone else,” a trainee divulged. This process involves liaising with local counsel and holding meetings with clients.

“Another big part of the group is hedging,” such as managing risk with deal contention hedges, but “derivatives is obviously the main thing.” Linklaters is the primary counsel to ISDA, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Inc. Work for this organisation includes drafting and finalising its sustainability-linked derivatives confirmations and drafting its carbon credit transactions definitions.

Clients in the derivatives and structured solutions realm are primarily banks. “You get a lot of drafting experience,” a source explained, for instance drafting the documentation that governs notes and structured products for banks. Most of this drafting is based on precedents, but insiders explained, “Sometimes I did draft from scratch which was quite interesting, for example a memorandum for a series of notes that would be issued.” Trainees also liaise with regulators and speak to clients directly. “Some of the more interesting parts are the legal opinions associated with certain tasks,” we heard. On average, transactions take three weeks, so trainees get to work on quite a lot of them throughout their seat.

Trainee Life

“I have so many close friends at Links that I don’t see as work friends anymore!” enthused one trainee, reflecting the general tone of our interviews. “I feel like I’ve had such a good training contract because of the support I’ve got from everyone,” said another. Beyond just the trainee cohorts, “people are open about their struggles, open about the fact that this is hard work. It’s not easy to do day to day. That honesty is quite important,” reckoned one source.

There are some trainee and firm-wide socials for various causes, such as LGBT socials and events for Black History Month.Teams also organise their own socials – some to mark cultural events, others to celebrate closing deals and some just as general get togethers, including summer and Christmas parties, informal lunches and after work drinks. We heard teams are open to suggestions from trainees on organising inclusion-related socials, signposting that “the firm is really passionate about inclusion. It’s one of the main reasons why I picked the firm,” a source noted.

Closely linked to the inclusion focus is the firm’s commitment to pro bono. Opportunities include asylum cases and legal clinics for housing and employment. Of course, there is the understanding that that lawyers are juggling a lot of responsibilities, so “they structure a lot of them to work around people’s busyness,” an interviewee explained, “From trainees to partners, people spend time doing it.”

Speaking of time and busyness, our sources reported a wide range of average working hours, from 9-to-7pm stints to midnight or 1am finishes (sometimes even extending to 4am during extremely busy periods). While these hours may not be everyone’s cup of tea, trainees reasoned, “Coming into a firm like Links, you are privy to what the hours might be. It comes with working at one of the magic circle firms.” Trainees also have regular check-ups with their seniors and the professional development team “to make sure everyone’s on top of work and not too stressed.”

Thoughts were split over salary. While there were some reservations over the long hours trainees in the city often work in return for their competitive salaries, others explained, “I feel really lucky to be so well paid. It’s definitely enough; I don’t know how it wouldn’t be really.” For their toils, first year trainees are compensated a neat £56,000, rising to £61,000 in their second year, before making the almighty leap to £150,000 upon qualification.

At Linklaters, trainees’ supervisors are known as principals. “The principal relationship makes up so much of your experience,” one informed us, “Your whole seat is really based on who your principals are, what they do, and how you get on with them.” Reviews are relatively informal, consisting of an “open conversation with your principal about what you can do to be better and for qualification options.”

“The quality of training at the firm is ridiculously good!”

While training styles vary between departments, the overriding sentiment from interviewees was that “the quality of training at the firm is ridiculously good!” Some provide “lecture-style” sessions in the early weeks, others do all their formal sessions in the first few days, and some spread them throughout the whole seat. “There’s a focus on informal training as well, mostly from sitting with your principal and receive ongoing feedback on what you did well and don’t do well,” a source explained.As far as in office attendance goes, trainees are expected to be in-person four days a week.

The qualification process is “surprisingly relaxed. There’s no CV or cover letter or any extra process beyond completing the seat,” we heard.At the start of their fourth seat, trainees have a chat with the development team or HR, and are then encouraged to speak to their previous teams to see whether they would be happy to take them as an NQ.

The next step is filling in a form to rank their preferences, along with other questions like whether they would be interested in qualifying into the firm’s other offices. The firm did not disclose the number of qualifiers this year.