What makes us different? What makes us different?

What makes us different?

We work across an extensive range of sectors and practice areas.  Our clients range from global multinational organisations to emerging companies, who invent new industries all over the world.  If you want to work at the forefront of some of the most exciting sectors globally, this is the place for you. To find out more about us and what we do, sit back, relax and watch our learning film series below.

Defined by Knowledge

Our mission is to support the next generation of legal talent to be successful. To help prepare you for your journey, we’ve created our "Defined by Knowledge series" - lectures which explore our practice areas and specialisms. Click on a film below to hear from our lawyers.

Responsible business - our initiatives

We’re intent on building a better tomorrow and that starts with taking action today. Sustainability is key to securing our future and we always champion it where possible. We’ve signed the UN Business Ambition for 1.5°C and Race to Zero to ensure we consistently work towards reducing our carbon emissions. We have a robust CDP reporting framework and also founded the Legal Sustainability Alliance to drive change across the industry. 

We’re always looking for ways to drive sustainable practice. Recently, we’ve updated our travel, energy and real estate policies, developed and implemented more sustainable procurement policies and audited our existing suppliers to make more informed procurement decisions. Join us as a trainee and we’ll look to you to lend your voice on these issues and help direct us as a firm to create a stronger future. 

As a firm, and as individuals, having an impact on our communities and society is a huge priority to us. To ensure the work and resources we commit towards those efforts is as effective as possible, we developed a series of strategic themes and partnerships. They include:

Advancing racial justice

We bring our resources, skills and influence to work collaboratively in the community to address institutionalised racial discrimination.

Empowering women and girls and supporting youth.

To empower women and girls and support youth is to disrupt the trends of untapped potential, creating thriving local communities and igniting the global economy. 

Supporting innovation in environmental protection and advancing our sustainability goals

We partner with The Wildlife Trusts, Snowchange Cooperative, Rewilding Europe, and Rewilding Britain to find solutions to environmental stresses such as climate change and biodiversity loss and to promote approaches towards ecological stability and renewal.

Peace and reconciliation

We work with PeaceTech Lab, our global non-profit partner to implement lasting solutions to uphold human rights, reduce violence, and ensure inclusive participation.

External crises and change

We recognise our responsibility to offer support to humanitarian crises caused by natural disasters and we do this through our long-standing partnerships with CARE International and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Collectively, we spend 150,000+ hours a year on pro bono work that achieves a lasting impact for others. By making pro bono work a strategic priority for the firm, we can ensure the great causes we work towards always get the resources and commitment they deserve. Our work stretches from supporting groups and individuals in our local communities to implementing strategic litigation to bring about systematic change. Our industry-leading approach to co-ordinating pro bono work involves partner leadership of the practice in the U.S. and we also appointed an International Pro Bono Partner, the first appointment of its kind, in Europe in 2020.

We collaborate with ground-breaking and innovative organisations to support them to deliver their goals and scale their impact. We’re proud to contribute our time and skills to offer support where there are gaps in knowledge, resources and funding. Our local work supports our global aim to drive inclusive and sustainable development in which people and the planet thrive.

PeaceTech Lab is our current global non-profit partner. They benefit from strategic support across our 46 offices as well as fundraising by our people over the three-year partnership. At a local level, each of our offices chooses a non-profit in their community to work with. Our people undertake fundraising activities and as a firm we match donations by our people to further the impact of our non-profit partners.

HL BaSE is our foundation for building sustainable value for our clients and stakeholders. We believe international goals and policies such as UN SDGs and the Paris agreement are only achievable through strong partnerships, increased collaboration, sharing of insights and the creation of innovative financial solutions. HL BaSE empowers our lawyers to work with social enterprises, charities and impact investment projects. It helps make outstanding legal advice accessible to everyone trying to create positive change across the world. They run multiple programmes from a catalyst programme for social enterprises to a thriving legal practice. 

As a trainee, you'll attend our mini-MBA style training course where you’ll learn about the fundamentals of business and what drives clients’ big decisions. You’ll learn how to be more entrepreneurial so you can win more work and you’ll discover how important the way we conduct ourselves is to our firm’s success.