Kingsley Napley LLP - True Picture

Kingsley Napley training contract review 2026

The Firm

There are some things we only ever think about in pairs: salt and pepper, fish and chips, Shrek and Donkey, City firms and corporate law. Yet in the case of the latter, the correlation isn’t as strong as it first appears. In fact, there are big hitters in London that specialise elsewhere. Enter Kingsley Napley: “I really wanted to work with people. I wanted contact with clients rather than businesses,” explained one trainee at the firm, “I wanted to find a firm that was truly full-service. I stumbled across KN, and they specialised in criminal and had a really good public law team.”

The firm bags top Chambers UK rankings nationwide for both charities and commercial administrative & public law, extradition, business immigration, POCA work & asset forfeiture, professional discipline, and public enquiries, definitely not your standard corporate fare! As one source put it: “It’s quite hard to find a firm in the city with KN’s practice areas.”

“I really wanted to work with people. I wanted contact with clients rather than businesses…”

That said, a firm is more just its areas of practice, and culture is important too. Looking back on their experience as applicants, trainees told us that “of our cohort, there’s a real mix,” in fact, the firm has “predominantly female staff, even at partnership, which is rare and attractive.”

The Seats

As part of the seat allocation process, trainees then submit five ranked preferences prior to joining: “They try to take them into account, but it largely depends on business need,” one trainee told us. Sources reckoned that the criminal seat “tends to be given only to second year, maybe because it’s busier.” Client secondments“are rare but they do come up sometimes.”

Dispute resolution is the largest team at the firm with multiple specialisms contained within it, such as contentious trusts and estates, contentious probate, tax disputes, commercial litigation, fraud, international arbitration and restructuring & insolvency. Reputation management also comes under the DR umbrella. To give just one example of this department’s wide-ranging work, the firm recently acted for the voluntary liquidator of a Cayman trading company in a case where the firm sought to recover funds misappropriated from UK pensioners.

During their time in the seat, trainees have the opportunity to go to court with counsel, attend mediations and roundtable meetings. Day to day, “lots of the tasks are ad hoc” like doing exhibits for witness statements, reviewing, drafting letters, carrying out research, instructing counsel, monitoring correspondence, flagging case progression and handling client inquiries. Sources were quick to highlight the team as an exciting place to practice: “There’s a huge amount going on, and the team is growing.”

The immigration department has a corporate wing and a private client wing and an asylum wing.  Trainees have “lots of exposure to all three areas because it’s a huge immigration practice.” The work is “very form-heavy, but with lots of responsibility and client contact.” On the corporate side, a lot of the work revolves around the provision of skilled work visas, which means calling clients.

Private client means working with high-net-worth individuals, which “comes with its own challenges” as lawyers “have to provide a greater level of client care, whereas the corporate stuff is more process driven.”  Trainees work on asylum matters by helping with evidence, dealing with translator companies and experts, emailing clients, drafting letters, reviewing documents, taking witness statement interviews and making applications.

“I had a busy seat, but it was one of the best six months.”

Criminal litigation (informally known as crime) is “one of the top areas for a lot of people going into KN.” Work covers several areas, such as violent crime and sexual offences, extradition, white-collar crime, fraud, FCA investigations and Interpol cases. “That was an amazing seat. Out of all departments, it’s a bit more of an intense team. You’re pushed a lot harder,” explained one trainee. That’s perhaps no surprise due to the stakes involved in these cases! Trainees get plenty of client contact as well as the responsibility to run cases. “I had a busy seat, but it was one of the best six months.”

A seat in clinical/medical negligence and personal injury involves “really meaningful work with people,” helping claimants who have been severely affected by some form of negligence. The department handles birth injury claims, spinal injury and delayed diagnosis, among other kinds of incidents. Day to day, trainees are reading medical records and making chronologies of what went wrong and where it went wrong: “It was really intricate work, and I enjoyed the technical aspects of it.” They also write witness statements, draft, lodge court appeals, speak to experts and talk to clients and generally have a “nice level of involvement as a trainee.”

The work is “rewarding in a professional sense.” Beyond the billable work, one trainee told us that “one thing I really valued was the pro bono work specific to the team. We volunteer a day a week. You essentially have a helpline service. It’s the most direct client contact I’ve had – you’re literally just advising on the phone. I benefitted a lot from that legal experience.”

“The people are nice, the work is great, and the clients are lovely.”

In family, “I was really pleased with the mix of work between finances, children, prenups and surrogacy.” Other areas covered by this practice group include divorce (overlapping with finances), abduction and adoption (which come under children work) and cohabitation agreements. We heard the department is good at giving trainees more work in their areas of interest, provided that there are cases in that area, of course.

As a fair chunk of the work here is contentious, so trainees might attend court hearings, private hearings and arbitrations. Typical tasks include attending meetings as the notetaker and keeping all the documents up to date. There’s another bonus on top too: “I think the family team have been one of the friendliest teams I’ve ever worked in. The people are nice, the work is great, and the clients are lovely.”

Trainee Life

We heard that working hours vary between departments. While one source told us that “I can’t emphasise enough how many leave work at 5.30pm or 5.45pm,” others noted that departments like real estate or seats involving cases that go to trial may sometimes work much later. Across the board however, “if you do work late, it is appreciated.”

That said, don’t get the impression that it’s all work and no fun! “People think lawyers just work and don’t stop for anything, but at 1pm everyone goes up together to the canteen,” one junior added, “it ensures a break but also an opportunity to speak to colleagues during the day.” The in-office canteen, called Lenny’s, was also popular with our interviewees for its barista coffee and subsidised food.

As one trainee put it: “I think it’s in a perfect location, in between key stations.” Kingsley Napley’s HQ lies between Moorgate and Old Street, so we heard it’s “pretty easy to get to.” The office itself is all open plan, but benefits from several purpose-built areas such as silent working zones, client suites, meditation suites and a large event space on the ground floor.

Each department has its own “neighbourhood” within the open-plan structure but “there’s movement within those.” Trainees are generally in the office at least three days a week but certain departments prefer them to come in more frequently. The firm recently introduced a reasonable adjustment policy, so “you can work with your line manager now to change things to work at your best.”

“What you see on the website is what you experience when you get to the firm.”

While some of our sources reckoned they receive “a lower salary compared to other London firms,” they also emphasised that “you have a work life balance and I’d much rather have that. You’re still working in central London, and you have access to cool facilities and cases.” How about culture more generally? “What you see on the website is what you experience when you get to the firm,” one told us, “you have that anxiety around whether it is going to be as good as it says, but it’s exceeded my expectations.” This was something others echoed: “It’s not as daunting as you think it is. Everyone is really real. People are honest and nurturing, and partners are open to teaching you.”

Trainees have weekly meetings with their supervisor in which they discuss how they’re doing: “It really is a priority for them and they take it seriously.” The training principal also has a drop-in timeslot on a Monday for “if you want to talk anything through.”

The general consensus among trainees was that the firm is “really committed to what they do,” whether that’s taking on human rights and asylum cases, doing pro bono or volunteering, or internal DEI initiatives. “My values really aligned with that. When I saw all the different groups, I could really see myself fitting in with KN.” These include R.E.A.C.H. (race, ethnicity and cultural heritage), LGBTQ+, families, charities and environmentalism.

Trainees can get involved in events, for example an International Women’s Day event, a visit to a museum for LGBTQ History Month, book clubs, and marketing blogs for these groups. The clinical negligence team even does a hike up Snowdon for a disability charity – talk about going above and beyond! And the networks aren’t siloed off from each other either: “When things are going on, those groups are really supportive for each other.”

There are plenty of socials more generally as well. Trainees have budget to organise junior lawyer networking events and socials, including one for candle making! There are also firm-wide and departmental events like Christmas parties, dinners and talks from guest speakers.

Training is mostly department specific. In some teams, trainees will attend lectures or seminars from barristers, in others, trainees will have meetings where their supervisors who will walk them through documents and cases, and others will have more online sessions. Trainees get daily commercial awareness refreshers via newsletter updates from the information team. There’s also a training budget for trainees which they recently used to go to a Law Society summit.

Trainees are allowed one volunteering day per year, with opportunities such as the schools’ consent project. Pro bono partners include the Amicus Project, the Queen Mary legal clinic and Z2K, a London-based anti-poverty charity. The firm is “really open to ideas and if there’s something you’re passionate about.”

Qualification, we heard, is “quite a long process.” A list of NQ roles is released in late spring. A month later, trainees submit their applications which need to include appendices, a marketing plan and their mid-seat and end-of-seat appraisals. The next step is completing a case study and an interview.

“It’s an extremely grueling process,” one second-year trainee told us. But all the effort to qualify seems to be worth it, our interviewees described how their seniors had often been at the firm for a very long time, “it’s telling that they’ve stayed on for so long,” one said, “it speaks to the culture of the firm.” In 2025, the firm retained 5 of 9 qualifiers.

Get Hired

How to get a Kingsley Napley training contract 

• Opening dates for training contract applications (2028): 1 December 2025
• Training contract deadline (2028): 1April 2026

Applications 

Kingsley Napley doesn't have a vacation scheme, although it does offer a work experience programme throughout the summer months. 

Applications for a training contract begin with an online form at Apply4Law. An example of a question from a previous year is: ‘Kingsley Napley is committed to innovation in all areas. Other than the use of artificial intelligence, what initiative/ area would you suggest to the firm to ensure that we stay ahead of our competitors?' The firm recruits two years in advance. 

KN has no minimum grade requirements, but is looking for applicants who produced well-rounded applications.  

Assessments and interviews 

Successful applicants are invited to a virtual assessment day. The day is made up of two tasks, and takes around 3 hours. 

The day includes a case study exercise, followed by a group debate exercise. The topics are disclosed on the day, and candidates are given some time to prepare before presenting their arguments to the assessors.   

Successful candidates from the assessment days are then invited to attend a final interview with three partners or senior associates and a member of the People and Culture team. The interview consists of a mixture of competency, skill and opinion-based questions. For candidates hoping to stand out, what matters most to the firm is that a candidate’s personal values that align with KN’s firm-wide culture. 

Offers of training contracts are made to candidates by July.