Burges Salmon is to become one of the first law UK firms to hire legal apprentices under new standards aimed at improving the quality of apprenticeships and making them more relevant to businesses.
The Bristol-headquartered firm has been involved in the Trailblazers initiative for two years and is part of the steering group for legal services. 
Trailblazers is a cross-party scheme developed to boost apprenticeships and align them more with the needs of employers.
More than 1,300 employers are involved, between them developing over 150 new apprenticeship standards.
The legal sector group has designed three new apprenticeship standards – Level 3 paralegal, Level 6 chartered legal executive and Level 7 solicitor.
Burges Salmon was involved in the development of all of the legal apprenticeships and was part of the sub-group that helped to draft the Level 7 solicitor apprenticeship. This is currently one of only two Level 7-approved Trailblazer standards ready for delivery.
Burges Salmon is now looking for four apprentices to complete a Level 3 paralegal apprenticeship.
Its chief people officer Robert Halton said: “We fully support the principles behind the Trailblazers initiative and recognise the value that apprentices can bring to any business.
“We want to develop skills for the future of our business and the legal sector. Other professional services have been offering high quality apprenticeships for years with great success and we see this as an exciting development for the legal sector.”
Burges Salmon staged a number of events in Bristol during the recent National Apprenticeship Week to raise awareness of the new apprenticeship standards, including an open evening on for local schools, students, parents and teachers.
