The Black Aspiring Solicitors Scheme (BASS), established in 2019 returns for its fifth year, in
collaboration with Allen & Overy, Herbert Smith Freehills, Mayer Brown and Taylor Wessing.

Each sponsor firm invites a cohort of Black and mixed-race Black heritage mentees to join its BASS scheme for a series of virtual and/or in-person workshops hosted from September to November 2023.

The workshops are designed to upskill you, developing your application skills and commercial awareness, and insights into working in commercial law. You’ll also build your peer and professional networks and develop your soft skills.

How do I apply for BASS?

BASS is part of our leading coaching programme developed by former commercial lawyers at leading UK law firms. Being selected onto BASS affords you access to a wide range of career-advancing services including careers and employability workshops, 1-2-1 mock interviews and application review, unique events and law firm insight days. BASS ensures you have access to well-rounded preparation on your route to becoming a qualified lawyer.

Next steps

To be considered for BASS, you must apply to AS Aspire by 30 June – these applications have now closed.

In July, successful candidates will be contacted with details of the BASS schemes with places being allocated in August, and schemes starting in September. Please note that whilst our programmes have grade requirements, we do genuinely take mitigating circumstances into account so do not let this put you off from applying and make sure to detail your mitigating circumstances!

Eligibility

To apply for this opportunity, you must:

  • Be an Aspiring Solicitors member (from at least one of our underrepresented groups)
  • Not have accepted a training contract with any law firm or legal team
  • Not have been on Aspire previously
  • Have an interest in pursuing a legal career in the UK or Ireland
  • Be eligible to apply for a vacation scheme in the 2023/24 academic year. This means you will need to be one of: a penultimate and final year Law undergraduate, a final year non-Law undergraduate, a graduate of any degree, a postgraduate student (including GDL/LPC/LLM or other post graduate degrees), a career changer or someone who has completed a degree and is working.) Anyone who will be in their first year of a Law degree or first/second year of a non-Law degree in 2023/2024 is not eligible
  • Be resident in the UK or Ireland in the academic year 2023/2024
  • Ideally be physically be present in the UK between September 2023 until December 2023 (to attend interviews and/or vacation schemes in person)
  • Have received ABB at A Level (or the international equivalent) (please note we genuinely take into account mitigating circumstances and usually enjoy 30-50% NRG participants)
  • Have received or be on target for at least a 2.1 degree classification (please note we take into account mitigating circumstances)
These kinds of workshops are so important to me because, as a Black woman, I really love it when firms acknowledge diversity and they actually embrace that. All of these workshops have really helped us and equipped us with so many different skills. Today has been one of those days where I’ve been so proud to be who I am, and I have been loving every single opportunity. I am very grateful to be part of this scheme with Aspiring Solicitors.
I enjoyed the in-person workshop where I got to interact with the lawyers and have a tour of the firm, which helped me imagine myself being able to work in the firm as a trainee. I also enjoyed the case study exercise which helped prepare me for the type of work I’d do as a trainee, helping me to improve my commercial awareness and teamworking skills.”
BASS was so insightful. Our mentors were really supportive and considerate of the fact that this is such an early stage of our career. I would definitely recommend this Scheme to those that are willing to put in their 100% into the Scheme in the same way the firm does!”
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