Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Overview

Sullivan & Cromwell is an international, full-service firm with an integrated global platform spanning the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm emphasises early responsibility and personalised client commitment, training lawyers as generalists across core groups (Litigation, General Practice/Corporate, Tax and Estates & Personal) while staffing matters on a cross-office, multijurisdictional basis. S&C positions itself as a team-oriented practice where partners remain accessible, and it supports international secondments and broad exposure to complex cross-border M&A, capital markets and finance matters.

Values & Culture

Practice Areas

• Capital Markets
• Competition & Antitrust
• Corporate & M&A
• Financial Services & Regulation
• Infrastructure & Projects
• Insurance & Reinsurance
• Private Equity & Venture Capital
• Real Estate
• Insolvency & Restructuring
• Dispute Resolution & Litigation
• Tax
• White Collar Crime
• Private Client & Wealth

Geographic Focus: Integrated global platform with major strength in the United States, Europe (notably London, Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris) and Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne). The firm staffs multijurisdictional teams on cross-border M&A, capital markets, private equity and finance matters and makes regular use of inter-office rotations and secondments to provide clients with coordinated international coverage.

Training Contract

The Firm’s UK trainee programme emphasises generalist training and cohort-based development. Incoming lawyers and associates operate across broad practice groups rather than being tied to a single specialised rotation; the careers pages describe formal assignment systems, a structured learning curriculum and an advisor programme to guide development. Trainees are given client responsibility early and are exposed to cross-office, cross-disciplinary matters.

• Starting Salary: £65,000 (Year 1); £70,000 (Year 2)
• NQ Salary: £177,000
• Trainee Intake: 12
• Qualification Rate: 100%
• Academic Requirements: Minimum published degree requirement: 2:1. No minimum A-level requirement is published. Vacation scheme and trainee eligibility explicitly includes penultimate-year law students and final-year non-law students (S&C accepts non-law graduates into its early-career pipelines).
• Application Deadline: 2026-06-12

Seat Options

• Dispute Resolution & Litigation
• Corporate & M&A
• Tax
• Private Client & Wealth

Sponsorship

A PGDL/PGDL-style grant of £20,000 is published in supplementary data; a SQE grant of £20,000 is also published.

SQE Support

Grant support is provided for qualifying routes: a SQE grant of £20,000 is published in supplementary data.

International Opportunities

International secondments and cross-office rotations are an explicit feature of the programme. The firm notes regular rotations through S&C offices worldwide (90 lawyers rotated through offices in a recent five-year period) and trainees have a documented chance of overseas secondments (57% reported chance). Typical destinations include the firm’s offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt and other European and Asia-Pacific offices.

Client Secondments

Client secondments are offered; insiders report a 43% chance of client secondment for trainees.

Mentorship

Formal mentor/advisor arrangements exist (an "advisor programme"), combined with structured performance evaluation and a learning curriculum. The trainee programme is overseen in the UK by a training principal, and trainees have regular access to partners and senior lawyers for mentoring and feedback.

Apply on the Sullivan & Cromwell LLP website →

Programmes & Schemes

What Sullivan & Cromwell LLP Looks For

Key Competencies

• Commercial awareness
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Intellectual curiosity and problem-solving
• Resilience and adaptability
• Strong academic attainment (2:1 degree or above)
• Language skills and international experience (where relevant)

Evidence Signals

• Commercial internships or vacation scheme experience
• International study or work experience and language skills (particularly for Asia/European offices)
• Pro bono or public service engagement
• Evidence of teamwork (eg. group projects, sporting or society leadership)
• High academic results (degree classification) and demonstrable commercial awareness

Benefits & Wellbeing

• Trainee salary Year 1: £65,000
• Trainee salary Year 2: £70,000
• Newly qualified (NQ) salary: £177,000
• PGDL/PGDL grant: £20,000
• SQE grant: £20,000
• Vacation scheme stipend: at least £2,500 total for two-week scheme
• Annual leave: 24 days
• No annual target hours (no billable hours targets)
• Subsidised on-site restaurant
• Subsidised memberships in the building's private health club and gym
• Concierge service for personal needs
• Reasonable travel expenses covered for Insight Days (for travel from within the UK)

Wellbeing

Subsidised private health club and gym memberships, an on-site subsidised restaurant and concierge services are noted as part of the firm’s support for staff well-being.

Awards & Recognition

• Best Recruiter – US Firm in the City at the LawCareers.Net Training & Recruitment Awards (won multiple times; cited wins in 2018 and 2020)
• Six LawCareers.Net awards for training and recruitment in the seven years prior to 2020 (as noted on the firm site)

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Pro Bono

In 2023 S&C devoted more than 62,000 hours to over 350 pro bono projects, including individual pro bono initiatives and longer-term signature projects; the firm highlights significant partner and associate involvement in pro bono and public service activities.

Innovation

Quick Application Angles

• Emphasise examples of cross-border experience or language skills in your application — the firm staffs multijurisdictional teams and highlights international secondments (57% chance) and integrated office collaboration.
• Demonstrate your ability to work as a generalist: cite examples where you worked across topics or switched focus rapidly (S&C trains lawyers as broad generalists across core groups).
• Reference the firm’s trainee programme features — early client responsibility, access to partners and the advisor/learning curriculum — and explain how you would make the most of those opportunities.
• Mention concrete interest in one of the four core UK practice pathways (Litigation, General Practice/Corporate, Tax, Estates & Personal) and give commercial examples relevant to that stream.
• If applying to Europe or Asia offices, include evidence of local legal or language capability (for Frankfurt the site requests German proficiency; Beijing and Hong Kong applications can be submitted in Chinese or English).