Shakespeare Martineau welcomes trainees and apprentices

Full-service law firm Shakespeare Martineau in Colmore Business District has welcomed its latest cohort of trainees and graduate apprentices.

Freya Whiteside, Justin Clegg, Afrin Nanavatti, Jakub Mikulecky, Govind Johal, Jonah Cooke, Lisa Bauroth, Maria Sharpe, Rebecca Sault and Sinead Pow will undertake four six-month seats in a variety of specialist practice areas, including education, insolvency, dispute resolution, infrastructure and contentious probate.

Emily Labbate and Eleanor White have also enrolled in the firm’s SQE Graduate Apprenticeship programme with the University of Law.

Emily Cupi, early ambitions development adviser at Shakespeare Martineau, said: “We are delighted to welcome our latest cohort of trainees and apprentices to the firm, and we are committed to ensuring they receive the very best start to their legal careers.

“Our trainees and apprentices are our future and make a valuable contribution to the firm. We are proud to support them on their journey to becoming qualified solicitors; they are all extremely talented individuals and I have no doubt they will each be an asset to their teams.

“We firmly believe in investing in our people to ensure we have the skills and talent necessary to drive the firm’s future organic growth. I look forward to watching them grow and develop as lawyers in their time with us, and I am excited to see what the future holds for them.”

In August, six of Shakespeare Martineau’s trainees officially became qualified solicitors. Helen Rowland and Tait Grundy are part of the firm’s litigation and restructuring team, while Katie Parker will be contributing her expertise to the commercial property and development team. Lucy Feghhi qualified into the firm’s commercial and IP team, Sophie Plant qualified into the education team, and Abigail Lynch joined the medical negligence team.

Sophie Baker qualified into Shakespeare Martineau’s employment team in July, Camilla Uppal will be qualifying into the firm’s tax team in August, and Emily Sleight recently qualified as a solicitor through the CILEx route.

Many of Shakespeare Martineau’s current partners and lawyers qualified through its training contract programme, including partners Lisa Botterill and Andrew Wilkinson, who started as trainees in the 2000s when the firm was known as Harvey Ingram.

Corporate partner Lisa said: “I grew up in Leicester always knowing the firm was the best in the city. I was lucky enough to transfer my training contract halfway through and spent 14 months of my two years training with the firm. I received a very good grounding in the area that I wanted to qualify into and have never looked back since I qualified.

“We have always done a really wide range of interesting work, which has provided me with a varied career and, more than two decades later, I am delighted to still be working for some of the same clients I was working for all those years ago.”

Contentious probate partner Andrew added: “Little did I know at the time that the firm I joined would become the firm it is now. I’ve seen extraordinary change, but throughout my time, the firm has supported my growth and development, and I am proud to call it home.”

Shakespeare Martineau has recently launched its two-year early careers development programme, which connects those on their legal qualification journey with the firm, offering a support network, opportunities for collaboration and wider skills development, including commercial acumen, time management, communication and legal research.

For further information about Shakespeare Martineau’s training contract programme, please visit www.shma.co.uk/careers/opportunities/training-contracts.