Julia’s journey to Trower’s & Hamlins

Julia is now a solicitor apprentice in Trowers & Hamlins’ Exeter office. Law had been her goal for as long as she could remember, but it was an Uptree insight day at the firm’s Exeter office in November 2025 that convinced her Trowers & Hamlins was the place to start her career.

Julia studied Maths, History and Psychology at A-level. From the start of Year 12, she used her school’s designated work experience days to explore the legal world, finding opportunities through Uptree, which she discovered through her own research and an enrichment programme she was part of.

She was clear from early on that the solicitor apprenticeship was the right route for her.

“You’re here right from the very start, gaining all that experience. You’re in the office four days a week, learning how to draft letters and investigation reports. I know if I went to uni, I wouldn’t have that experience from the very start.”

Juggling her A-levels, Julia didn’t want to make lots of applications. She wanted to focus on a few firms she was certain about, and the Exeter insight day made that decision for her. She picked up details she could reference directly in her application, right down to which floor handled real estate work. More importantly, she saw the firm for herself.

“I realised the culture on the website wasn’t just words. I could actually see it in person, and that’s what put Trowers at the top of my list.”

The online assessment was the toughest part of the process. It was unlike anything she’d done before, and she wasn’t sure what the firm was looking for. To prepare, she followed advice from current apprentices, practising timed drafting and skimming news articles to pick out key information. On the day, technical issues added to the pressure, but she chose to simply give it her best and be herself, knowing that the right firm would value her approach.

Just weeks into her apprenticeship, Julia is in the insurance disputes team, and loving it. She expected to start with admin tasks. Instead, as soon as her training finished, she was drafting emails to clients, reviewing files and identifying next steps, then carrying them out once her supervisor agreed.

“I was surprised by how early I was doing tasks that solicitors would be doing themselves. I can see what happens at the start of a matter, the middle and the end, which makes it really enjoyable.”

There’s plenty to look forward to. Julia hopes to be running her own matters by December under supervision, and has her sights set on an international secondment later in her apprenticeship. At Trowers & Hamlins, apprentices spend a year in a different department for each of their first four years, before rotating every six months alongside the firm’s trainees.

Her advice for students weighing up their options is to make the decision your own. Sit down and consider the pros and cons of each route for yourself, rather than following what others say. Being clear on why you want a solicitor apprenticeship will also make your application stronger, since it’s a question almost every firm asks.

Interested in following in Julia’s footsteps? Trowers & Hamlins is running a solicitor apprenticeship work experience day with Uptree in Exeter on 19 November 2026, and an online application masterclass on 27 January 2027. Find out more and sign up on the Uptree Trowers & Hamlins page.