Placements in the Law School

• There are many benefits to undertaking work experience as a core part of your degree, including:
• To get a flavour of a professional working environment.
• To road-test a career option - within or outside of the legal sector.
• To try out different areas of Law.
• To develop skills you might not gain purely from a degree programme.
• To develop key personal skills, such as networking and verbal communication.

There are four ways in which the University supports students in pursuing work placement opportunities:

• Login to Handshake using your student details and click on ‘Career Centre’ (top right-hand corner of screen)
• Click on the ‘Appointments’ tab and then ‘Schedule a New Appointment’
• Select the ‘Work Placements’ category
• The appointment type Work Placement Appointment – EDU, EFPM, LAW, SSI2001, SSI3017, SSIM should be listed and you can click through to select an available date/time

Resources

As an Exeter student, you will have access to a comprehensive range of digital resources to help you in your placement search, including MyCareerZoneDigital, Handshake and Forage. You will also have the opportunity to engage with a range of Employability Schemes such as The Exeter Award, Career Mentor Scheme and Ask an Alum.

Over the past few years, students in the Law School have sourced and secured year-long placements in traditional law firms, in-house legal teams, and in adjacent sectors such as Human Resources and marketing. To date, the University has worked with over 30 organisations to deliver outstanding work experience opportunities for our students.

Placement opportunities are typically identified through advertisements on external websites (such as RateMyPlacement or Bright Network) or increasingly through employers’ direct engagement with the Law School, for example as part of the Placement Programme’s workshop series or at the Law Fair.

Whilst these advertised positions offer fantastic, high-level professional development, bear in mind that these are not exhaustive of the options out there.

Through the non-credit-bearing workshops in your first and second year, the Programme team aim to empower you to identify your own opportunities in line with your aspirations.

You will also be encouraged to engage in networking activities and speculative applications to unlock the “hidden job market”.

There is also the possibility to pursue opportunities abroad, and the Programme has previously supported students undertaking work placements in France, Italy and Hong Kong. If you are interested in working abroad, we encourage you to refer to the Work Abroad SharePoint and get in touch with HASS-placements@exeter.ac.uk.

Students in the Law School can also undertake credit-bearing work placements as part of the 15-credit module Learning from Work Experience in the Social Sciences.

In this module, students are supported in sourcing and securing 40-hour placements in a sector of their choice. This can include short-term work experience in a law firm or in any other work environment where you can develop graduate-level skills.

Shorter placements are an ideal way to road-test a career option and sharpen skills in all aspects of the application process, including CVs, application forms and speculative approaches.

This latter aspect is the more likely route for accessing short-term opportunities.

This module is available to students during their second or third year and can be opted for through Online Module Selection, typically during March/April.