2025 MELBOURNE GRADUATE PROGRAM

Discovering the perfect match for your aspirations is crucial when embarking on your legal journey. The Herbert Smith Freehills graduate program offers an unparalleled opportunity to kick-start and propel your career forward, with a global leader in law. You'll experience close mentorship, direct client interaction, and the opportunity to contribute to real-world projects, cases, and deals.

What we can offer

Our program is designed to help hone your skills as you dive into diverse and complex matters that are both challenging and rewarding across a range of practice areas, providing you with broad-based training and ensuring that you are ready to become a qualified solicitor.

As a rotating graduate, you’ll rotate through three distinct practice areas for six months each and will be assigned a partner and buddy for support.

We support graduates on their pathway to becoming solicitors by providing Practical Legal Training (PLT) and support through the admission process.

Once admitted, our graduates will begin the second stage of their formal learning program – Advance. This program focused on the client, financial and people skills needed to take you to the next step of your career.

What we’re looking for

At Herbert Smith Freehills, we believe that exceptional graduates possess both technical excellence and a growth mindset.

We value individuals who bring their best, are curious and who constantly seek to learn and improve from every experience. These graduates embrace challenges, viewing them not as obstacles but as opportunities to stretch their capabilities and achieve outstanding results.

We're looking for people who are proactive, demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to make a real impact, fostering strong relationships with clients and colleagues across our global network.

Our inclusive culture

At Herbert Smith Freehills, we strive to foster a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus, and highly engaged individuals set us apart. We celebrate the uniqueness of our people. Our firm comprises individuals with a range of experiences and backgrounds. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment empowers our people to be their authentic selves at work, feeling valued and able to perform at their best. We understand that our future success hinges not only on being innovative and progressive in the evolving legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling engaged.

We acknowledge that our people have commitments and personal interests outside of work. We strive to create an agile working environment based on mutual trust and respect, where people can perform at their best while maintaining a sustainable balance between their work and non-work lives.

At Herbert Smith Freehills we are committed to the inclusion of all individuals participating in the application and interview process. This includes providing tailored accommodations to those who require them. You can request accommodations at each stage of the recruitment process. If you would prefer to discuss beforehand, please reach out to your local Graduate Recruitment Consultant. You can find their details at the bottom of this PAGE.

Please note:

Applications are open to

- students who are in their final year of their law degree or who have recently graduated

- students who have previously applied

- applicants who have recently commenced a graduate role or solicitor role

We accept applications from international students, provided that you have unrestricted legal rights to work in Australia when you commence our Graduate Program.

HERBERT SMITH FREEHILLS. YOUR GROWTH. OUR AMBITION.