Trainee Placements

Through our unique trainee placement scheme, we develop well-rounded, market leading attorneys of the future who are Trained for Excellence. We support our trainees with achieving their UK and European professional qualifications; put simply this is your ‘passport’ to practicing as a patent attorney. What really sets Mewburn apart, however, is our placement scheme, where we commit that our trainees will access high quality, on-the-job learning from three different partners (known as ‘principals’) across a variety of technical specialisms.

Our Placement Scheme

As a patent trainee at Mewburn, your placement scheme will typically be for a period of three years and three months for those who start in September. Naturally, this will be a little longer for people who start earlier than September. All placements change at the start of January each year to avoid clashes with professional examinations, typically October (UKS) and March (EQEs).

• There are three placements during your placement scheme. Every trainee will experience working in-person in at least two Mewburn UK offices, with each trainee’s individual placement plan and locations tailored to them:
  • Placement 1 (typically 15 months from September to the following December) in-person with your first principal in your starting office;
  • Placement 2 (12 months from January to December) in-person with your second principal either in your starting office or in-person in a second UK office location;
  • Placement 3 (12 months from January to December) with your third principal, either back in your starting office, in-person in a second UK office location (where you have not yet ‘moved’ office locations for 12 months) or in-person in a third UK office location. During placement 3, there is the option to work virtually with your third principal (i.e. your principal is in different UK office to you), or in-person with a principal in the same UK office as you.
• To facilitate your relocation to another UK office in the second or third year of your placement scheme, you will receive a £10,000 Placement Allowance, paid quarterly during your yearlong placement in December (£4,000), March (£2,000), June (£2,000) and September (£2,000). The allowance is weighted, and payments commence ahead of your placement start (January), to help with upfront costs associated with moving offices. The allowance is subject to tax and national insurance but is non-pensionable.
• You will also be assigned a Principal Mentor, who will oversee your development for your three year three month placement scheme and will support your development alongside the principal you work with day to day. In most cases, we expect that your Principal Mentor will also be your first principal, so that you are able to develop a strong working relationship with them early on. Where this is not possible, we will ensure that at least one placement is spent working with your principal mentor. Throughout your placement scheme, in addition to your principal, you can also turn to your principal mentor for guidance, insight and career development conversations. They can also help make recommendations for future placements in support of your career aspirations and technical areas of interest.

Our Placement Scheme visualised

Here is our trainee patent attorney placement scheme summarised visually. Remember, at least one placement must be undertaken in person in another UK office in either Year 2 or Year 3, supported by our Placement Allowance.

Placement locations – a two-way process

Occasionally, we require flexibility in terms of your starting office location due to the availability of principals who align to your technical specialism. Some people have absolute clarity on where they would like to work once they have finished the scheme; others are open to experiencing the placement scheme and making a decision on their final working location a little further down the line. Both scenarios happen every year, and both approaches are absolutely fine.

Once you join Mewburn, finalising the location of Placements 2 and 3 is a collaborative process between the trainee and the business, facilitated by our Learning & Development team, whereby through regular one-to-one conversations with trainees we balance trainee personal preferences with client work and principal availability to finalise placements. For most trainees on our placement scheme, this will mean experiencing working in person in two Mewburn UK offices across their first and second placements, with a few trainees placing in three UK offices (where the trainee and business needs align). We will always confirm the location of your next placement with at least six months’ notice, but we strive to give you closer to one years’ notice where at all possible. We commit to ensuring you are placed in your preferred settlement office as soon as possible, but we may on occasion require flexibility. 

Things change…

We appreciate that things change, either at work or at home. For example, you may join with a very clear view on where you would like to settle, but on your placement journey, you may decide you would like to build your career in a different office (for work or personal reasons). Throughout your placement scheme we will regularly discuss where you would like to settle, and we will accommodate changes as soon as we are able to.

Indeed, we have qualified attorneys with four- or five-years’ experience who have ‘settled’ in a UK office and then request to relocate to a different UK office. We simply ask that you keep talking to us and we will always do our best to accommodate any location changes.