Virtual Law Work Experience & Internships: Essential Guide

In my coaching and mentoring work, I regularly speak to aspiring solicitors who are unsure whether to undertake virtual law work experience or the value it offers.

There are real benefits to virtual experience, but there are also misconceptions. And way too many candidates fail to utilise them in the right way.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use virtual internships strategically to improve your chances of securing a training contract, including:

• What they are and where to find them.
• Why you should do them and how to maximise the benefits.
• The misconceptions and mistakes around them.
• A TC hack on how to reduce the time spent on them.
• How to use them effectively in the application process.

So, let’s dive in.

What Are Virtual Internships?

Virtual internships (also called job simulations) are online programmes offered by law firms and delivered through platforms such as Forage, Bright Network, and Legal Cheek.

They are usually free, self-paced and open to all students regardless of background or location.

The content is typically based on realistic trainee tasks such as:

• Reviewing contracts.
• Drafting emails.
• Advising clients on hypothetical legal problems.

You’ll often receive model answers once you submit your own, enabling you to compare your approach and learn from best practice.

Why Do Virtual Internships?

Undertaking virtual law work experience can be valuable in a number of ways, particularly if you don’t yet have much legal work experience.

Key benefits include:

• Gaining insights into what lawyers and trainees actually do and the skills needed.
• Learning about, and clarifying your interest in, specific practice areas, sectors and firms.
• Developing commercial awareness and an understanding of law firms as businesses.
• Learning how legal advice is structured and delivered.
• Building confidence with legal and commercial terminology and jargon.
• Drawing on them to help demonstrate your motivation for a career in law and interest in a specific firm or practice area.
• Developing core skills of a trainee, such as writing, researching and advising.
• Practice in hypothetical tasks which are often similar to those you’ll face in firms’ assessment centres.

Many firms stress the benefits of virtual internships.

For example, Clifford Chance says this:

“Applicants are nearly four times more likely to gain a training contract offer after completing one or more of our internships as a direct result of the insights they have gained and skills they have developed through this.”

Now that’s a compelling argument to do them.

Common Misconceptions & Mistakes

While virtual internships are useful, they’re not as important for everyone and are often utilised ineffectively by candidates.

The biggest misconception about them is that they will bolster an application by showing you have legal work experience.

In and of themselves, the fact that you’ve done them does little to help you stand out from the competition. This is because they’re so accessible, and many people do them and include them in their applications. 

One way to increase the value of these virtual experiences is to utilise them to strengthen various aspects of your application, such as supporting your motivational answers.

Another misconception is around how many virtual internships to do.

There’s no magic number, but there are usually diminishing returns in the value you will get from them with respect to the impact they have in an application.

I recommend doing a full internship at two or three firms that align with your interests. You can always reference what you did and learnt in those internships in applications to other firms if relevant.

I see some common mistakes you will want to avoid:

• Doing too many virtual internships in full instead of working on higher-impact tasks (for example, interacting with firms or deeper firm research).
• Referencing internships without explaining what you learned or why they were relevant.
• Listing each one individually in the work experience section — it’s better to group them together in one entry and pull out the most relevant and impactful parts.

If you’re intentional with the time you spend on virtual internships, it will pay off.

You also need to think strategically about how you use them.

Use Law Virtual Internships Strategically

There are two ways I recommend my coaching clients approach virtual law work experience:

1. Full Completion

You should block time in your calendar to complete the full internship for two or three firms.

Each internship provides an estimated timeframe (although they often take my clients a bit longer) – if you’re tight on time, choose the quicker ones.

Here are the steps I recommend you take:

• Complete all modules properly in focused sessions (as if this were an in-person work experience).
• Take notes on the tasks, skills used, commercial issues raised, and what you learned about the firm and the work lawyers do.
• Reflect on how the experience links to your career goals or interest in the firm (or similar firms).

You can do more than three if you have time on your hands, but that time is usually better spent on other critical tasks, such as developing commercial awareness and application writing skills.

The other time you should consider doing a firm’s internship in full is before an interview or assessment centre with that firm. Some firms like Kennedys strongly recommend this. 

You will need to assess the time you have available and ensure you don’t leave too little time for other essential prep. However, if you can do it, it can give you an advantage (for example, you can refer to it in your interview answers).

2. Quick Review

A great strategic move is to adopt a process that allows you to quickly review a whole internship without spending a lot of time completing it in full.

This is a TC hack that I recommend to my career coaching clients, which most candidates aren’t using.

Here’s my process:

• Use a second email address to sign up, just in case the firm checks to see whether/how you completed it (then use your primary email address on your TC/VS application).
• Submit basic responses to access model answers (one word is usually enough), and progress through the tasks quickly.
• Once you’ve reached the end, go back and carefully read through the tasks, watch the videos, and review the example answers. As you do this, create your own study notes on key elements of the work project(s). I talk more about this below.

This enables you to develop commercial awareness and firm-specific knowledge efficiently, without spending valuable hours on each simulation.

When it comes to firms on your final shortlist, in an ideal world, you would do their full virtual internship before drafting your application. However, this isn’t often practical or a good use of your time. 

If a firm really stresses the importance of doing their internship, then you might choose to. Otherwise, give the firm’s internships a quick review and make notes on what you can learn by doing this that will help you with your application.

Capture and Reuse What You Learn

In my experience, most candidates fail to maximise the value of virtual law work experience.

And that’s because they go through them but don’t spend the time to reflect and capture all that they can learn from them.

I recommend you create a document for each virtual internship and make your own notes on the following:

• The task(s) involved.
• What did you learn about legal work and the firm?
• What skills or behaviours were involved?
• Any new legal or commercial terminology?
• Commercial knowledge and commercial awareness insights.
• Useful phrases or structures from the model answers.

You can then reference these notes to strengthen your applications and interviews.

How to Present Virtual Legal Work Experience in Applications

Candidates often present virtual internships ineffectively in applications.

Either they provide too much detail, with descriptions of general tasks that attempt to make them more than they are. Or they just list them without any key details.

Some candidates split each virtual internship into separate work experience sections in the application form. This is usually a mistake as it leads to too many irrelevant details.

Instead, group all of your virtual internships into one work experience section, or put them elsewhere on the application form if there’s a more suitable section for them.

My recommendation is that you choose the two or three internships that are most relevant to the firm you’re applying to (for example, a similar firm and/or practice areas). Then write brief descriptions of what you did and what you learnt from them.

If you have others, you can list them afterwards, but keep the word count for those to a minimum.

Where to Find Virtual Internships

These are the three main platforms I recommend for law virtual internships:

• Forage (previously Inside Sherpa) – the largest collection of law firm job simulations (around 100-120).
• Bright Network – Internship Experience UK (or IEUK) is Bright Network’s 4-day virtual internship programme (run in July).
• Legal Cheek – week-long virtual vacation schemes in the spring, summer and winter.

Make a Plan

So, what you do next will depend on your personal circumstances.

If you’ve already done some internships in full, go back over them and ensure you’ve captured solid study notes on all the learnings.

If you haven’t done any, and have the time, then choose a two or three to do and block the time out in your calendar to complete them in focused work sessions (treat them like a university tutorial, not passive media consumption!)..

And for everyone, have a go at doing the quick review of some additional internships that look interesting to you.

With all that said, don’t think they’re the be all and end all and don’t waste time on them, which would be better used on other critical parts of the TC recruitment process.

Good luck!