A&O Shearman Smart Start Programme, London
Not open yet: applications open 1 December 2026
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Spend five days at a law firm tackling workshops, challenges and guided activities with lawyers, volunteers and alumni - or join live evening webinars on applications and career skills. Get one-to-one application support, mock interviews and a completion certificate; in-person participants also have travel costs reimbursed.
Smart Start is A&O Shearman’s social mobility programme, run in partnership with Causeway Education, for Year 12 or equivalent students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. It is designed to give early insight into legal and professional services careers and to build confidence, skills and aspiration.
Students can choose between two routes. Smart Start week is an in-person, five-day work experience programme at the A&O Shearman London office, where participants take part in workshops, challenges and guided activities with support from lawyers, volunteers and alumni.
Smart Applications is the virtual option, made up of live evening webinars that cover university and apprenticeship applications, employability skills and other career development topics.
The programme offers practical benefits as well as insight into life at the firm, including one-to-one application support, mock interviews, eight essential skills development, access to UCAS support through OSCAR, and a completion certificate. For Smart Start week, lunches and refreshments are provided free of charge and travel costs are reimbursed.
Students who engage most actively in the virtual route may also be invited to a celebration day at the London office.
Completion certificate from A&O Shearman; City & Guilds certificate for students who meet the benchmark; digital credential
1 December 2026
July 2027
Smart Start week
Location
- Be in Year 12.
- Have always attended a state-funded or non-fee paying school.
- Be a UK national or EU national with settled status in the UK by the time they apply for university.
- Come from a household where no parent or guardian has attended university.
- Receive, or have previously received, free school meals, pupil premium, an education maintenance allowance or a 16 to 19 bursary fund.
- Be or have been in local authority care.
- Be or have been a full-time or part-time young carer.
- Come to the UK as a refugee or asylum seeker.
- Come from a household where a parent or carer has served in the regular armed forces.
- Attend a school or college with below average A level or Scottish Highers points scores and/or a low rate of progression to higher education.
Lunches and refreshments provided free of charge during Smart Start Week; travel costs reimbursed for participants.
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