Tie-up with Queen Mary University
US law firm Paul Hastings has teamed up with Queen Mary to launch a year-long legal innovation internship open to the University’s law students.
Students on QMUL’s law in practice degree can now apply to spend a year interning in the firm’s practice innovation, knowledge and legal solutions department based in the London office.
The internship is open to one student for the time being who will be paid above London living wage for the year. The first intern has been recruited and starts this month.
The intern will work across the firm’s global practice groups experimenting with legal tech and tools to improve systems and workflows. It has been designed to help students learn about alternative career paths in law.
Arun Birla, tax partner and chair of Paul Hastings’ London office, said: “The legal industry is currently undergoing a period of rapid technological transformation, and it’s vital that as a firm we stay on the forefront of this change — not just for our clients, but also to help develop the talent of tomorrow. We need to be creating multi-disciplinary practitioners for the future, and this is a great step forwards in achieving this.”
Dr Nigel Spencer of QMUL school of law added: “I am especially excited that Paul Hastings is offering our students a placement in the team which is helping to define what their ‘firm of the future’ looks like — working internationally across their firm, and experimenting with technologies and tools which will be applied to legal practice over the coming years.”
QMUL’s law in practice degree is a four-year course, or ‘sandwich degree’, in which students spend their third year completing a paid internship within a law firm. Alongside Paul Hastings, students have the option to work for Bindmans, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Mishcon de Reya and Reed Smith, which, in 2015, was the very first law sandwich degree and comes with a guaranteed interview for a training contract.
That same year QMUL struck a deal with Norton Rose Fulbright which sees the firm cover the cost of two students’ fees for its energy law masters course, and offer them a two-week vacation scheme.
