Clifford Chance LLP Hiring for Training Contract – Middle East Job at Dubai

You are only able to make one application to a Scheme/role (Training Contract OR Middle East Training Contract OR IGNITE OR the Winter Vacation Scheme OR SPARK). Multiple applications will not be considered. You are eligible to apply for one Open Day and focused conference alongside these applications.

Please be aware that we will only review your application form. If you upload your CV, this will pre-populate some of your application however your CV will not be reviewed.

Please do NOT upload a covering letter as this will not be reviewed.

Places are now available for our two-year Middle East training contract starting in 2025 (regulated by the UK’s Solicitors Regulation Authority and leading to qualification in England and Wales).

Clifford Chance is one of the world’s leading law firms, offering local and global client’s expert advice on all aspects of commercial law. The firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across five continents and seven practice areas. Undertake your training contract in the Middle East and you’ll be sharing an ambition that has fuelled our growth and established our credentials as legal pioneers across the region.

As a trainee at Clifford Chance, you will undertake seats in at least four of these practice areas. Three of your seats will be in our core areas of Finance, Corporate and Capital Markets. You will complete one seat in in London and three across our Middle East offices; Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

You will therefore gain a truly international legal experience working alongside leading sector professionals from across two continents. This will enable you to launch your career as an England & Wales qualified lawyer in the Middle East.

As a trainee in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or, Riyadh you will become a valued team member from day one. You will be close to the action with an active role in client relationships and business development early on. Moreover, you will enjoy the challenge of working on a wide variety of international, market leading and landmark transactions, often collaborating with colleagues from other offices and practice areas.

Whilst your experience on each seat will be very different, in all of them you will develop your legal and business skills, gain insight into our high-profile clients and enhance your commercial awareness. The tasks you undertake could include: drafting and proofing documents, conducting due diligence on a client’s acquisition target, attending client meetings, preparing documents for a court hearing, researching titles and leases on a real estate portfolio or creating a data room ahead of a major transaction. You may even run some smaller transactions for our clients.

Underpinning this exposure to the best work available, you will receive learning and development support from the Clifford Chance Academy, arguably the legal sector’s leading in-house learning and development facility. At the start of each seat you will receive specialised training in that sector and a dedicated supervisor.

Throughout your training contract, you will be closely supported, both informally and through formal mentoring, by the graduate development team, legal support manager and your monitoring partner.

As a trainee in the Middle East you will get the opportunity to work on some of the most complex and innovative deals in the region.

Some the transactions that we have recently advised on are:

We’re looking for graduates who are genuinely interested in the law and committed to a career in the Middle East upon qualification. Candidates with strong ties to the region and fluent Arabic drafting and speaking skills are preferred for our ME program.

Whilst you do not need to have prior legal experience or a law degree to apply to us, we expect our trainees to be problem-solvers with strong communication skills and commercial acumen. The competencies that we look for in our trainees include:

All Future Trainees with a 2025 start date will complete the SQE prep prior to joining us as a Trainee.

Both the PGDL and SQE are funded by Clifford Chance and we will provide a maintenance grant to use during your studies. More details can be found on our website.

Applications open on the 23rd of August 2022 and close at 11:59pm (GMT) on 8th December 2022. We do not recruit on a rolling basis, and we do not review applications until after the deadline has passed. We therefore encourage you to engage with our Global Virtual Internships and Events Hub before submitting your application.

Shortly after submitting your application, you will receive an email from us asking you to complete an online Watson Glaser critical reasoning assessment. This takes approximately 30 minutes and should be completed within 5 days of receiving our email with instructions.

The assessment days for Training Contracts will take place virtually during the weeks commencing 16th January 2023 and 23rd January 2023.

Further information on the firm and the opportunities that we offer can be found on our website – https://careers.cliffordchance.com/middleeast/home.html