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School of Law

Careers and Professional Development

Two students in Lincoln's Inn FieldsThe School of Law at Queen Mary University of London is committed to your future.

We offer a variety of opportunities for you to learn further about career paths open to you, develop skills to enhance employability and gain professional experience to boost your CV.

Many senior practitioners and academics from leading law firms, chambers and other universities work with us, providing excellent networking opportunities for our students. In addition we have an extensive network of alumni with whom we develop strong relationships in order to inform and advise our current students.

Careers support

Queen Mary offers a variety of services to support your career and professional development:

This award winning service located in Mile End organises events featuring representatives from top UK and international law firms to help you understand the legal job market and choose the most appropriate career route for you after graduation. You will also be able to take advantage of a wide range of other careers events, workshops and services to gain more information about law and non-law careers and receive advice on job hunting and applications.

For more information about these events and services, visit Queen Mary Careers and Enterprise.

In addition to the numerous career services provided to all Queen Mary students, Queen Mary Careers & Enterprise Centre organise an extensive range of career activities exclusively for LLM and MSc students. This includes:

  • Exclusive events with law firms, leading industry professionals and our alumni
  • One-to-one careers sessions with specialist legal careers consultants
  • Workshops on CV writing, interview skills and job searching techniques (including usage of social media)
  • Awareness of the requirements and recruitment processes of international law firms and gaining entry to training contracts and QLTS
  • Career option events for those considering a career outside law such as policy, compliance, legal technology and more.

Highlights from 2020 include:

  • Life at a Global Law Firm with Hogan Lovells
  • Explore: Careers in Consulting with alumni from EY, Deloitte, Accenture and Promontory
  • Online Applications with Eversheds Sutherland
  • Interviews with Linklaters
  • Explore: In-House Law, with alumni from IBM, HEINEKEN, Bain, Visa and BMW
  • Practising Law Around the World with alumni from Linklaters, White & Case, Latham & Watkins, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and K&L Gates

The School of Law runs a career-mentoring programme as an additional way of assisting our LLM students in their professional development. In 2021, close to 100 legal students received advice and guidance from one of our legal mentors.

Postgraduate Law Mentors are either UK based or work across Europe and certain global work destinations. They are mid to senior-level solicitors, barristers, legal consultants and industry executives etc., many of them Queen Mary alumni.

A mentoring journey

Sofía learned about the International Institute of Communications (IIC) through Emanuele Vadilonga, Director of Regulatory Affairs Europe, BT Global Services, who mentored her as part of the CCLS Postgraduate Law Mentoring Programme in 2019. The IIC is an independent, global organisation that brings together senior policymakers from across the emerging digital ecosystem to explore and discuss the opportunities and challenges that the new environments bring.

Emanuele encouraged Sofia to participate in the annual Future Leaders’ competition 2020. She won with her paper “The Gossip Algorithm: Human intervention in the context of AI and privacy.” Winning the competition has opened a number of professional doors to Sofia as she tells the audience in her podcast conversation about how it has impacted her professional life and personal development. — Mentee Sofia Mancilla, Technology, Media and Telecommunications Law LLM, 2019.

More information about the IIC Future Leaders Competition 2021.

Student testimonials

All of my sessions have been incredibly productive. My mentor’s appreciation of my work and her passion for law humbles me. Thank you for matching me with the best mentor I could have. — Aishwarya Bhonsale, Laws LLM 2021

We met for lunch and that experience was much better than having virtual mentoring meetings. Our mentor is humble, kind and helped us gain insights into the legal sector of UK as well as India. Having such an experienced mentor helped us gain knowledge and information about how to progress ahead and more importantly, after having such insightful meetings, I feel confident to enter the cycle of applications and making my way through it. — Urvi Gulechha, Comparative and International Dispute Resolution LLM 2021

Taking part in the mentoring programme has enabled me to reinvent myself at postgraduate level and to achieve everything I strived for. Not only have I gained a long lasting professional connection. I have also received very useful tips on how to navigate my career and maintain a healthy balance for both my personal and professional development. — Mentee Sharon Odeny, Commercial and Corporate Law LLM 2020

My mentor introduced me to the inner temple, the exclusive dining place and library for barristers. It was a fantastic experience! Furthermore, we shared topics related to my future career and he supported me in applying to an internship. — Mentee Yunjoo Park, Banking and Finance Law LLM 2020

Part-time work experience during term time

  • One Trust / DataGuidance
  • European Council of Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)
  • United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
  • Energy Law Institute at CCLS

Full-time summer internships and work experience

  • United Nations (UNCTAD), Geneva
  • Ashurst
  • Clifford Chance
  • Dentons
  • Preiskel & Co LLP
  • Promontory Financial Group
  • WilmerHale LLP
  • Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
  • Freshfields LLP
  • ICC Court of Arbitration
  • DWF Law

Work experience and work projects

  • Edwards Wildman LLP in Insurance Law
  • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
  • Stobbs & Co–IP/Patents Firm, Cambridge
  • Energy Charter Secretariat, Brussels
  • Research associate posts
  • School of Law departments

Work shadowing

  • The Hon. Justice Blair at the High Court
  • Sir Bernard Rix in the Court of Appeal when he was Lord Justice of Appeal

In 2020, nexa law and Queen Mary University of London have launched an innovative paid internship programme for postgraduate law students. nexa law is the UK’s fastest growing distributed law firm with over 70 consultant lawyers. A team of students from the University’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) supports nexa’s lawyers on a rolling 2-month basis throughout the year.

Due to this new experience, I have increased my knowledge of UK legal dynamics and built my own professional network.
Basak Oyku Cirak, Commercial and Corporate Law 2020

Essay competition for summer internships

Preiskel & Co LLP is a boutique law firm based in the City of London that specialises in UK and international corporate and commercial, specialist litigation, and regulatory matters.

CCLS announces the Preiskel & Co Essay Competition on an annual basis with first prize being the opportunity to participate in an internship at this City of London-based law firm. Students adopt a practical, commercial perspective to a topic, analysing the application of the law to technology and a scenario, which would be useful for a technology start up, or covering issues, which technology companies face.

The essay competition is open to LLM students, students of the Distance Learning Programme in Computer & Communications Law and PhD students.

Practical legal experience with qLegal

qLegal provides legal and regulatory advisory services to early-stage start-up companies, primarily in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector. The main focus is on helping these companies to address a range of challenging IP management issues.  

One of the unique and defining characteristics of qLegal is that the services are provided by high calibre postgraduate law students under the guidance of legal professionals from collaborating law firms and academic staff at CCLS. To learn more about qLegal and apply to become a qLegal adviser, please visit the qLegal website and follow qLegal on Twitter.

"Engaging with fellow students and seasoned practitioners helped me to understand what was required to meet the client's desired outcomes. The experience gave me a more rounded perspective of the legal challenges and commercial realities facing real businesses".
Damian Moran, qLegal Student Adviser

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