Headquartered in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, with an office in London, we offer a dedicated, integrated team to deliver exceptional service to our clients. As a top 100 law firm, we put our clients at the heart of what we do – solving their problems, championing their ambitions and helping them plan for the future.

We provide a fully integrated offering for high-net-worth individuals and families, national and international privately-owned businesses and non-profit organisations. We have one of the UK’s largest private client teams helping individuals and families to maximise their assets, making their lives easier by taking the burden out of managing their personal affairs. Our multi-award-winning corporate team supports many of the UK’s most exciting businesses from innovative start-ups to global brands, fulfilling all the legal service needs a business has during its life cycle. Our 120-strong team of real estate lawyers covers every aspect of the property lifecycle, working with private and institutional owners/investors, developers, lenders, private equity, landed estates and major occupiers.

At Cripps, we don’t just do the right thing by our clients, we’re committed to doing it the right way. With the best talent and the right balance of technology, creativity and imagination, we aim to make a lasting difference for our clients, people, communities and planet. As part of this, we invest heavily in our trainee solicitor programme with the ambition that our trainees will stay with the firm upon qualification and contribute to the continued success of the business. Many of our current partners started their careers as trainees with the firm.

The firm

Cripps is one of the country’s leading legal practices serving corporate, real estate and private clients. Our purpose is to ‘be the difference’, harnessing the collective energy, empathy and expertise of our people to make a positive and long-lasting impact on people’s lives and business.

With more than 450 people across our offices in Tunbridge Wells and London, we focus on delivering an exceptional service to our clients. We build, equip and continuously strengthen our teams, investing in the best talent and technology.

Principal areas of work

Corporate: with decades of experience, our award-winning corporate team offers a wealth of knowledge and advice to entrepreneurs and businesses, locally and globally. Whether starting out, expanding or maturing, we are trusted advisors to our clients, helping to identify opportunities, explore options and manage risks. The Legal 500 (2023) ranks Cripps in the top tier for corporate and commercial work, praising the team for their “proactive, flexible approach” and “strong understanding of commercial drivers and key transaction aspects”. We have expertise in: banking and finance; commercial contracts; corporate advisory; employment; investment and funds; mergers and acquisitions; restructuring and insolvency.

Dispute resolution: our large team of tenacious dispute resolution solicitors work with trust, tact and diplomacy to resolve our clients’ disputes as painlessly as possible. In the Legal 500 2023, we were placed in the top tier for commercial litigation (Kent, Surrey and Sussex), with several litigators being ranked in the hall of fame or as leading individuals. We cover: commercial; employment; family; inheritance; professional negligence; property and shareholder disputes.

Real estate: we have one of the best known, multi-disciplinary real estate teams in the South East. Our 120-strong team of specialist property lawyers span multiple real estate sectors and disciplines. We work across retail, leisure, food and drink, creative industries, housing and logistics. With construction, planning, property finance and dispute resolution teams, clients appreciate our joined up capabilities. Clients include the UK’s largest institutional investors, landed estates and residential developers as well as high-end luxury retail brands and technology companies. In the Chambers UK 2023 Guide, the real estate team were commended for being “commercial, knowledgeable and responsive”.

Private client: our highly skilled private client team supports individuals and their families, both in the UK and abroad, in their personal and professional lives. We help them to protect, grow, share and enjoy their wealth. Trusted for our expertise in high-value, complex cases, we’re noted for our discretion and integrity. Our private client teams consistently rank highly in The Legal 500, Chambers UK and Chambers High Net Worth guides. Several of our private client lawyers feature in the Spears 500 index. We have expertise in: residential property; family law and disputes; supporting the vulnerable; tax advice; wealth structuring; succession planning; wills, trusts and probate.

Sectors: over the years, we have built a strong track record in providing legal services in several industry sectors; charities and non-profit; creative industries; commercial real estate; retail, leisure, hospitality, and technology. We have built a multi-disciplinary team focusing on these sectors, who understands the market trends and the issues clients are facing. Drawing on the experience of our lawyers who have spent time working in-house, on secondments and days spent on site means we can understand the client environment and perspective.

Recruitment: our lawyers are either home-grown through the firm’s comprehensive training contract programme or join from other high-quality, city, national and regional firms and are complemented by high-quality business support professionals. We recruit people from all walks of life, who share our values: to care, imagine, enjoy and achieve. We understand that the best ideas come from working with each other, not for each other regardless of seniority. We also have an stablished legal apprenticeship programme comprising both paralegal and solicitor apprentices.

During our summer vacation scheme, you’ll experience three different practice areas, meet an extraordinary variety of people, and enjoy a unique insight into the work we do. It will be challenging but fun.

You will have the opportunity to learn from our lawyers and other professional staff. You’ll conduct research that extends your knowledge of the law and present project work to our legal professionals. All with encouragement and honest feedback.

Placements are full time at our Tunbridge Wells office.

We welcome applications from law and non-law graduates.

To be eligible to apply you must at least be in the penultimate year of a law degree or the final year of a non-law degree.

We offer a four-seat training contract providing genuine hands-on experience. Levels of responsibility are high with many trainees managing their own files under supervision.

Seats are mainly based in our Tunbridge Wells office although some trainees will get the chance to have a London seat too. There are a number of seats to choose from across real estate, corporate and private client. We do our best to arrange seats in a trainee’s preferred areas, however, this cannot always be guaranteed.

We offer a comprehensive induction programme and support is provided regularly through structured reviews and on-the-job coaching.

Trainees will also be invited to take part in our future lawyers programme, a programme of events designed to equip our trainees with the skills needed to become well-rounded and successful lawyers. This includes sessions on topics relevant to ‘modern lawyers’ such as design thinking and innovation.

Trainees also receive first class technical training from our team of professional support lawyers.

Cripps also runs a successful legal apprenticeship programme which has been offering candidates an alternative route into a legal career since 2018.

Recruitment is via an assessment day and successful candidates join a two year paralegal apprenticeship programme which begins in September each year. This is delivered in conjunction with BPP University and following completion of the programme, apprentices will be awarded the BPP Paralegal Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship as well as a Level 4 Certificate of Higher Education (Law and Legal Practice).

The firm also runs a solicitor apprenticeship programme which enables apprentices to qualify as a solicitor without going to university. Solicitor apprentices are recruited internally from those completing the paralegal apprenticeship programme. It is a four year programme in addition to the two years spent as a paralegal apprentice.

The trainee cohort joining the firm in September 2024 will be the first cohort to follow our SQE programme which we have put together in conjunction with BPP University. The full cost of the course will be covered as long as the candidate attends the BPP programme offered. Full details are on our website.

Please note, we will continue to accept applications from candidates who have already completed the LPC.

Diversity, equality and inclusion are more than simply words. Every person is, by definition, unique; we recognise people’s individual needs and do everything in our power to fulfil their aspirations.

We have active programmes around encouraging and nurturing diversity and inclusion, and have had a longstanding track record on ensuring equality. As of June 2023, we have included our existing wellbeing team in our EDI offering, resulting in having better oversight about all activities across the firm.  We have the following strands and each has a board sponsor and leader:  Gender, Disability, LGBTQIA+, Faith, Race and Ethnicity, Social Mobility, Parents/Carers and Wellbeing. 

We treat everyone we work alongside with dignity and respect and our policies on harassment, maternity and paternity leave, help uphold the importance of equality and inclusion in our culture.

The diversity of our team makes us more capable, responsive and, above all, human. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer – our diversity enables us to better serve our clients and to create better solutions for them.

We are fully committed to fostering a truly diverse business that reflects the community and society we inhabit. To underline this commitment, we have signed the Law Society’s Charter on Diversity, which promotes diversity and equality across the entire legal profession.

You can read our equality, diversity and inclusivity policy here and our anti-slavery policy on our website.

Cripps will pay 100% of your course costs if you study BPP’s SQE preparation course. We will also cover the cost of BPP’s Essentials for Practice course which you will complete before joining the firm.

Where needed we will also pay 100% of the course costs of BPP’s Law Foundations Course (PGDL).

• Private wealth
• Residential property transactions
• Commercial real estate
• Residential estates
• Commercial
• Corporate transactional
• Banking
• Commercial dispute resolution
• Employment
• Specialist dispute resolution
• Property dispute resolution
• Family
• Construction

• Corporate & Commercial
• General Commercial
• General Practice

• Tunbridge Wells
• London

• Law Society Diversity and Inclusion Charter
• Legal Apprenticeships
• StreetLaw
• The Stephen James Partnership