Application 

Before applying for a role here, candidates are advised to research our Firm, and the Personal Injury sector as a whole, to be certain that a career at a specialist personal injury firm of solicitors is where you want to practice. Although you may be sent on secondment to our sister firm, Lindsay’s Solicitors, to gain experience in other sectors, our Training Contract is predominantly personal injury and it would be difficult to change disciplines later if you find that this is not the area for you. 

Once you have completed your research, forward your CV and covering letter to daniel@duncangibbins.com. In your covering letter, please provide to us a full breakdown of your university and post-graduation results and also advise when you would be available for full time work.

Hints

• Don’t be shy and give as much information about your achievements both within, and outside, the law. 
• Don’t wait until the day before the deadline to submit your application. Sometimes business needs override our standard recruitment process and we may be able to offer a role earlier than expected.
• If you are completing the GDL / LPC Part Time, we may be able to offer full time work around your studies.

Assessment

If your application is successful, you will be invited to one of our “Assessment Days” with a number of other candidates. The purpose of the assessment day is to enable us to provide you with further information about the role and us as a firm. We will also discuss where you are in terms of studies and experience and hopefully find a “fit” between your skills and the requirements of the role.

To complete this assessment, we will firstly provide you with a short case study outlining the type of query we would normally receive from our client (such as a road traffic accident or injury at work). We will ask that you analyse the issues and identify any strengths / weaknesses upon a particular set of facts. In addition, we will also conduct a very short individual meeting to discuss the salient points of your CV.

During the day you will also meet members of our firm who started with us in the role on offer to hold an informal chat with you about their time at Duncan Gibbins Solicitors and also to answer any questions you may have. Finally, you will given a short tour of our office to familiarise yourselves with the day to day life of a busy personal injury solicitors.

Hints

Don’t worry about getting the Case Study answers “right”. As you will know from studying the law, there’s always an alternative argument for any set of circumstances. The Case Study is drafted in such a way that there is room for more than one “right answer” and we will be looking at how you arrive at, and present, your opinion rather than the answer itself. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! The assessment is equally for you to find out about the role and our firm as it is for us to assess your skills and motivation.

Interview

If following the Assessment Day we believe that you fit the criteria for the role on offer, we will invite you back to our office for a final interview with at least one of our Partners and other Departmental Heads. To have reached this stage, we will have satisfied ourselves that you fulfil the criteria for the current role on offer. However, this interview will provide you with the opportunity to show what you can offer the firm as both a Trainee Solicitor and also as a contributing member of a growing company. 

Hints

• We expect that you may not have experience of working within a personal injury law firm and that you may not have chosen this speciality as your elective. Provided you can provide sound reasons for the experience / electives you do have, this will not adversely affect your application.
• We appreciate that facing an interview for a position with a law firm may cause some nerves. However, this is equally the case when dealing with clients, third parties and the Court. One of the main traits we look for at this stage of the assessment is your ability to cope with this pressure and whether we feel you will fit into our Fee Earning team in the future.