Once you have been selected as a prospective trainee, your firm must send you an offer letter setting out the terms and conditions of your employment, including:
- any conditions to which the offer is subject
- the dates on which the contract will start and finish
- the starting salary, and how this will be reviewed
- holiday and sickness benefit entitlement
- the areas of law in which you will gain experience and the skills you will practise
- any arrangements for re-employment when the training contract finishes
It is good practice and common courtesy to accept the offer in writing.
Registering your training contract
Within three months of starting your training, you and your firm should complete and sign the training contract form, and your firm should send it to be registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) within 28 days of being signed. The registration fee is covered by the firm. Until the contract is registered you are not regarded as a trainee and are not protected by the Training Contract Regulations 1990, so it is in your own interests to ensure that it is done. If your firm refuses or otherwise fails to register your training contract, think very carefully about whether you want to stay with them.
Within 30 days you will receive a letter from the SRA confirming the registration and the date of expiry of the contract.
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