Hadya Khorami and Hiren Halai reveal what it’s really like to learn the law on the job, straight from school to the City
When Slaughter and May took on its first-ever cohort of solicitor apprentices last September, it marked a big move from one of the City’s most recognisable legal names. Almost a year in, Legal Cheek Careers caught up with two of those apprentices, Hadya Khorami and Hiren Halai, to find out what it is really like to learn the law on the job straight out of school.
We started by asking what drew them to the apprenticeship route in the first place. Hadya came across it at a school law fair, and the pitch landed straight away. “Hearing about how you get to learn and earn while you study really sold it to me,” she says. “I just learn better when I’m actually doing the thing, rather than just the theoretical side of it.”
Hiren, like many, weighed university against the apprenticeship before committing. “I had the choice between uni and the apprenticeship,” he explains, “and I looked at the differences and where I could be in 10 years.” For him, the decision was straightforward. “I think it’s just so much more beneficial to my future career than going to university,” he says.
So why Slaughter and May? Both point to a firm that does things its own way. “The firm in general is very different to law firms across London and across the world,” Hiren says, highlighting its focused global footprint and the strength of its relationship firm networks, which give it international reach without the sprawling office count of its rivals. He is also taken with how the firm trains its lawyers. “You are trained to become a multi-specialist, which I think is so helpful and interesting,” he says. “Being able to advise on a broad range of legal matters across your practice area, , rather than being limited to a specific area, is really good.”What really sets the apprenticeship apart, though, is its structure. Rather than throwing apprentices straight into fee-earning work, the firm starts them somewhere a little unexpected.
“For the first two years in the programme, we sit with knowledge lawyers in the legal groups,” Hiren explains. “Each practice area at the firm has knowledge lawyers who focus on managing and enhancing the firm’s legal knowledge, so that fee earning lawyers can deliver the consistently high quality advice that the firm is renowned for. This includes creating and sharing legal know how and monitoring legal and market developments. Working in these teams means that we have been able to really absorb expert knowledge, expand our commercial awareness and develop invaluable research and analysis skills right from the start.” For Hadya, it is one of the things that makes the programme stand out. “Sitting in the knowledge team is something that’s really unique to the firm,” she says. “I don’t think any other firms do that.” Being the first cohort has its perks, too. “We get to put in as much input as possible, and they really do listen to us,” she adds. That early promise is already drawing recognition — the programme recently won the ‘Sixth Formers’ Choice for Solicitor Apprenticeships’ Award at The Legal Cheek Awards, a sign of how far it has come in a short space of time.
Day to day, sitting in a knowledge team means plenty of legal research, drafting precedents and pitching in on business development. Hadya’s seat ties in closely with her contract law module at university, and she has been drafting precedent agreements and contracts. “It’s really cool to see how our university work applies to our practical work in the workplace too,” she says. For Hiren, the message from fee earners and trainees has been consistent. “They’ve been saying that legal research is a really key part of what we do as lawyers,” he tells us.
Both value how much the role brings them into contact with the rest of the firm. Rather than being boxed into a single team, they find their work arriving from all directions. “It’s not just my supervisor giving me work,” Hiren explains. “It’s different knowledge lawyers, different fee earners.” Hadya enjoys getting to “help behind the scenes and assist in that way, which I think is quite cool.”
Support, both are keen to stress, has been plentiful. From the moment they accepted their offers, the firm was in regular contact and organised welcome events . There are now fortnightly catch-ups with the early careers development team, regular sessions with supervisors and monthly check-ins with continuity partners. A two-week induction was followed by termly training on everything from tech to drafting contracts, with sessions tailored to whatever the apprentices would like more support with. One unexpectedly useful example, Hiren says, was a workshop on notetaking. “You don’t think you need to be told how to take notes,” he laughs, “and then once they ran through it, I realised that I’ve been so bad at taking notes!”
The long hours that hang over the profession are an obvious worry for anyone going from school into a City firm, but on this both apprentices are reassuring. Each has kept up friendships outside work, popping over to see school friends now at university, while the firm runs a busy social calendar of its own: a summer party, an annual dinner dance in the winter, employee network events and trainee socials every couple of months. They are also plugged into networks with other firms across the city. “We get to make friends and socialise with other apprentices from different firms, which is really good,” Hadya says. And the firm is strict about one thing in particular. “They’re really set on protecting our hours,” she explains, with the apprentices leaving at a set time each day. “It ensures we have time to study and can still have a social life.”
So who thrives on a route like this? For Hiren, it is someone with staying power. “You need to have resilience to get through this whole six years. It’s a long time,” he says, recommending the path to anyone goal-oriented and purpose-driven. For Hadya, it comes down to attitude. “The biggest thing is someone who’s really willing to learn,” she says, alongside good time management, motivation and strong communication. Asked what they would change about their first year, both wish they had relaxed a little.
Hiren was so cautious about protecting time for his university work that he ended up unnecessarily stressed. “If you go through A Levels, you can get through anything,” he reflects. Hadya, meanwhile, would tell her nervous, newer self to be bolder and to “ask as many questions as you can.”
Reassuringly for any school leaver who feels behind, there is no expectation that you arrive knowing everything. “I wasn’t an expert on the law before starting,” Hadya says, having had only a surface-level awareness of the subject, which is fair enough for someone just out of school. She built her commercial awareness gradually, skimming the news, completing online work experience through Forage (including the firm’s Explore Law programme) and, later, picking up the FT. That leads to their shared advice on applications. “Make sure you’re not just applying for the sake of it,” Hiren urges, favouring “a smaller number of firms that you really care about” and a genuine personal connection to each. Hadya agrees that research should run deep, and that the relationship works both ways. “You look at why the firm’s good for you and why you’re good for the firm,” she finishes.
Slaughter and May will be attending Legal Cheek’s virtual law fairs, and Legal Cheek Live! in-person events in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin and Leeds in the autumn.
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