Birketts’ Social Mobility Insight into Law Experience (SMILE)

We are committed to supporting social mobility and believe that all people should have the opportunity to practice as a solicitor regardless of their socio-economic background. By helping to widen access to the legal profession, we are confident that we will attract the best talent to the sector to the benefit of us all.

SMILE is a weeklong workplace encounter, designed to give year 12 or equivalent students who fit the PRIME criteria an opportunity to work at a UK Top 50 law firm. Working with our partner schools, we ask that interested students speak to their careers leads about applying for the programme.

SMILE 2024

Junior staff members at Birketts have been supported by the Partners in designing and developing initiatives to help ensure that we can connect with students from less advantaged backgrounds in the areas local to our offices. In April 2024, we ran our inaugural SMILE week as a pilot in our Ipswich and Chelmsford offices. This week-long work experience offered students from schools meeting the PRIME eligibility criteria the chance to experience what it is like to work at a top 50 UK law firm.

The programme began with an induction day, including breakfast, lunch, an ice-breaker activity, an introduction to Birketts and a talk on how to make the most of the week ahead. The students completed two seats in different practice areas, shadowing fee earners and working on a wide range of legal tasks such as drafting letters, advising on real life client scenarios, and researching legal issues. We also provided the students with workshops on a range of headline and niche practice areas, presentations from some of our business services departments (Finance, HR, Client Services and IT) as well as practical skills workshops including CV and interview preparation.

The students who took part in the pilot joined us from Suffolk One Sixth Form College and Havering Sixth Form. The students were buddied with Trainees and newly qualified Solicitors and engaged with numerous support staff and senior fee earners to gain a holistic understanding of how the business services’ arm of the firm works together with our lawyers. We found this important in furthering not just the students’ technical ability but also their commercial awareness. The pilot was hugely successful receiving a 5-star rating from all students, who reported gaining valuable skills applicable to any job, legal or otherwise.

SMILE 2025

Following the successful launch of SMILE in our Ipswich and Chelmsford offices, we will be rolling out the scheme across all our offices in 2025 (excluding the brand-new Bristol office). We will be working to build on and grow the success of the 2024 pilot, to reach more students and maximise the impact of the scheme. The chosen schools and colleges will be contacted directly, and their students invited to apply for this scheme.

Am I eligible?

SMILE is part of our ESG strategy and is designed to designed to give year 12 (or equivalent) students who fit the PRIME criteria an opportunity to work at a UK Top 50 law firm. All of our Partner Schools and Colleges are directly contacted by us to invite their students apply.

Applications process

To give a real feel for starting a career in law, we ask all students to apply for our SMILE programme. Using a simple application form we want to hear about you, why you are interested in perusing law as a career and what you hope to get from the week. If you are successful, you will be invited to an informal Teams interview during February half term, so we can find out more about you. If you are interested in applying, please check our Schools Partners list and if your school or college is listed, please speak to your careers advisor. Applications close on Friday 31st January.

The SMILE scheme forms a key strand of our ESG Strategy, and more details can be found on our Social page.

For any questions in relation to SMILE or social mobility at Birketts, please contact Jay Johnson, Lizzy Ferguson, Eleanor Bullen-Bell and Natasha Thompson.