My journey as a Legal Team Apprentice

My name is Masoomah, and I am currently working at Form3 as a Legal Team Apprentice. Four days of the working week consist of working in-house in the Legal Team, and the remaining day is spent studying towards my legal qualifications.

I am already 9 months in and have learnt so much about the law, its impact on productions at Form3 in addition to having met experienced professionals from a range of different career backgrounds. I’m also two semesters into my first year at BPP University, who are my university training provider.

My apprenticeship programme is six years long – a fact that always makes other’s eyes wide open. Despite it being one of the lengthier programmes, it is this way for good reason.

I became aware of apprenticeships as an alternative to university shortly after I finished my A-level exams. At the time, I had received my five university options, none of which I was overly drawn to. I wanted to ensure the time, money and effort that I would go on to invest into studying law at university was a decision I was wholeheartedly in for.

A summer legal internship and a set of A-Level results later, I came to the realisation that I wasn’t quite ready to take the next step academically, not without a well-earned break and the opportunity of exploring other potential gateways into a legal career. And so, I decided that a gap year was in order. I devised a one-year plan that covered experiences and milestones I wanted to hit before settling into the next chunk of my academic life.

I wouldn’t ever have been able to fathom how important the year out of education would be for me. I broadened my cv with professional working experience, a volunteering position and I accomplished my final DofE Gold award. I also published an e-book (Lawyer in Progress) as part of a six-month project following on from my summer internship, designed to provide school leavers the advice that I also desperately needed when fresh out of sixth form.

Whilst busying myself with the above, I completed numerous legal work experience programmes in my gap year, both in-person and virtual, to understand what the legal career I aspired to have would really entail.

The one-year plan I devised certainly paid off – the skills I began to develop from the experience that I gained gave me a LOT more to talk about in my second round of university

applications and first round of apprenticeship applications. I spent a copious amount of time researching the apprenticeship schemes offered in the legal sector. The more I learnt about the legal apprenticeship schemes offered to school leavers, the more committed I became to getting enrolled into one. I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the routine I had built in my gap year earning a wage and learning about the law.

After setting my sights on a legal apprentice job post at Form3 on LinkedIn, I was fixed on getting this particular apprenticeship programme. As I went through the interview process, I learnt more and more about what Form3 did and my interest only grew. It was my first apprenticeship application for an in-house legal team as a lot of the paralegal and solicitor apprenticeships I had applied for were based in private practice.

I quickly became drawn to Form3 after recognising that working in-house here would mean that I would not only developing my legal knowledge, but also learn about business productions, payment infrastructure etc - something that I didn’t initially know a legal apprenticeship could offer me.

9 months into my six-year programme at Form3 and I can say that the time I’ve spent working here has truly exceeded what were already really high expectations joining the company.

What I enjoy the most about working here at Form3 is how no two days are the same - I get to learn something new each day. As put at the beginning, working at Form3 has definitely been the best investment of my time and effort.