In-house Trainee: Qualifying without Dispute Resolution experience
Hi everyone, I’m an in-house trainee at a small firm (approx. 20 employees) due to qualify soon. I am the firm's first trainee, and my supervisor has limited experience with managing trainees and the SRA’s training requirements.
The issue is that I’ve gained little to no dispute resolution/contentious experience during my TC.
My supervisor initially dismissed this as "part of the in-house training contract experience” but has recently realized it is a mandatory SRA requirement for qualification. They have asked me to research how an in-house trainee can obtain dispute resolution experience.
So far I’ve considered law firm secondments, legal clinics, chambers and litigation programmes as options but I feel like I’m hitting dead ends.
In terms of Law firms secondments: My supervisor believes the law firms we instruct won't take me because we don’t "generate enough business" for them. I don't understand this rationale, as we have long-standing relationships with our law firms & I have been working with them throughout my TC. My supervisor is in the process of speaking with them but has yet to be successful.
On Legal Clinics: I have not been successful yet as they have either been unresponsive, require more experience or don’t have availability for volunteers. My university legal clinic for instance require volunteers with 3+ years PQE. I have contacted Citizens Advice but have yet to hear back.
I don’t know anybody in Chambers who would be keen on taking on a trainee for DR experience.
I’ve also looked into trainee litigation programmes (BPP/ Ulaw) but they don’t seem to satisfy the SRA’s requirements (they only last a couple of days & some don’t provide actual work experience).
Aside from law firms and clinics, are there alternative ways to satisfy the contentious requirement (e.g., specific pro bono schemes or ADR-focused placements)? Anybody I could contact?
I am tempted to reach out to our law firms directly. Should I reach out to them & propose a short secondment or "work shadow" arrangement or do I leave this to my supervisor? Anything I could do to ease the process?
Do you think that a law firm would refuse a trainee secondment from a client based on the volume of work a client provides? Any guidance on how to approach in-house to private practice secondments (keep in mind we do not have any HR)?
I feel like I am running out of time and can’t seem to find anybody who relates to my situation. If anyone has navigated an in-house TC with a lack of contentious work, I would be incredibly grateful for your insight.