2023 Grad­u­ate Program

We believe our Grad­u­ate Pro­gram forms a cen­tral role in the devel­op­ment of a lawyer’s career. Grad­u­ates are the cor­ner­stone of our cul­ture and reflect our core val­ue of Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it, by invest­ing in Grad­u­ates we are pay­ing it for­ward’ for gen­er­a­tions of lawyers to come. 

Our Grad­u­ate Pro­gram will pro­vide you with the hands-on expe­ri­ence, sup­port and learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to embark on a reward­ing and suc­cess­ful legal career in a pro­fes­sion­al environment.

Grad­u­ate Lawyers — 5 positions

We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring on board five grad­u­ates with vary­ing focus­es. Three of the grad­u­ate posi­tions will have a gen­er­al focus and will com­plete three, nine-month rota­tions through our cor­po­rate and com­mer­cial team, the lit­i­ga­tion and insol­ven­cy team and the employ­ment law prac­tice group. The oth­er two grad­u­ate posi­tions will specif­i­cal­ly be in our Prop­er­ty, Plan­ning and Projects (PPP) team. The suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will get expo­sure to a range of areas includ­ing res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial prop­er­ty trans­ac­tions, devel­op­ment, con­struc­tion and stra­ta mat­ters as well as plan­ning and envi­ron­men­tal mat­ters. You will be exposed to the trans­ac­tion­al and liti­gious areas of work.

You will be allo­cat­ed a super­vis­ing part­ner in each rota­tion and also assigned a Senior Asso­ciate or Asso­ciate and a bud­dy to pro­vide you with sup­port and guid­ance through­out each rota­tion. Your busi­ness skills and legal knowl­edge will be devel­oped by under­tak­ing research, draft­ing let­ters, attend­ing court and medi­a­tions, draft­ing legal doc­u­ments, liais­ing with clients and get­ting involved in gen­er­al day to day mat­ter man­age­ment. Expo­sure to clients and part­ners this ear­ly on in your career will enable you to devel­op your con­fi­dence, legal skills and pro­file at a more accel­er­at­ed pace. To make sure you get the best pos­si­ble start to your career, we also invest in your pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment through inter­nal and exter­nal­ly offered programs.

What are we look­ing for?

We are look­ing for pas­sion­ate and moti­vat­ed indi­vid­u­als with a sol­id aca­d­e­m­ic record and var­ied inter­ests out­side of aca­d­e­m­ic life because we val­ue the impor­tance of a bal­anced lifestyle for indi­vid­ual and organ­i­sa­tion­al health and well­be­ing. The suc­cess­ful appli­cants will need to be able to demon­strate their excel­lent rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills, their enthu­si­as­tic and ded­i­cat­ed approach to their work and a will­ing­ness to com­mit to their careers and learn all they can. Appli­cants must have com­plet­ed their uni­ver­si­ty stud­ies or be in their final year of uni­ver­si­ty to be eli­gi­ble for these grad­u­ate positions.

Why Swaab?

Our close-knit teams mean that you will have a high­er lev­el of engage­ment with part­ners and clients than you would get at a larg­er law firm.

Our grad­u­ate pro­gram has been designed with flex­i­bil­i­ty to ensure each grad­u­ate gets the most out of their rota­tion. It is very much a hands on expe­ri­ence. We are large enough to offer you the pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges you seek and small enough to pro­vide you with the per­son­al sup­port you need to meet them. We care for our peo­ple and you are very much inte­grat­ed in the wider Firm, not iso­lat­ed to a prac­tice area.

Our work­place encour­ages a bal­ance of work and play, and we are proud of our fam­i­ly friend­ly cul­ture. We believe the gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it of our peo­ple, makes this a spe­cial place to work.

About Swaab

We are a mul­ti-award win­ning com­mer­cial law firm with an entrenched com­mit­ment to our clients and our col­leagues which we live through our own Swaab Brand of Ser­vice. We proud­ly serve the mid­dle mar­ket, list­ed cor­po­ra­tions, fam­i­ly busi­ness­es, wealthy indi­vid­u­als, entre­pre­neurs and start-ups that want a respon­sive and nim­ble team of experts who cel­e­brate their con­tri­bu­tion to the broad­er Aus­tralian economy. 

Our key areas of prac­tice are prop­er­ty, cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and tech­nol­o­gy, employ­ment law, lit­i­ga­tion, insol­ven­cy, trans­port and fran­chis­ing. We work across a num­ber of indus­tries includ­ing prop­er­ty, retail and fash­ion, health, pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, trans­port and media. In addi­tion to our com­mer­cial prac­tice we also have a high­ly rep­utable fam­i­ly law team. 

We are a mem­ber of Mer­i­tas, a glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent, full-ser­vice law firms and is its only Syd­ney based mem­ber. This allows us to keep in touch glob­al­ly, pro­vide extend­ed ser­vices to our clients and gives us the expo­sure and oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with inter­na­tion­al businesses.

How to Apply

If you are inter­est­ed in a grad­u­ate posi­tion at Swaab, please attach a cov­er let­ter, CV and your aca­d­e­m­ic tran­script and sub­mit using the Sub­mit Your Resume’ sec­tion on this page, or you can email to resumes@​swaab.​com.​au to the atten­tion of Angela Sharpe, Head of Peo­ple and Culture.

In your cov­er let­ter, please pro­vide short respons­es to the fol­low­ing questions:

  • are you inter­est­ed in the gen­er­al grad­u­ate posi­tions or the PPP grad­u­ate positions?
  • have you com­plet­ed your law degree? if not, when will you com­plete your studies?
  • have you com­menced or com­plet­ed your PLT studies?
  • why are you inter­est­ed in a grad­u­ate posi­tion at Swaab?
  • what qual­i­ties do you con­sid­er your strengths?
  • do you have any non-legal busi­ness expe­ri­ence that you can bring to the grad­u­ate role?
  • which Swaab val­ue (Com­mit­ment, Integri­ty, Excel­lence, Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it, Uni­ty or Inno­va­tion) do you con­nect with most?

All appli­ca­tions will be treat­ed in strict confidence.

Publications

Read more Publications about Grad­u­ate program

In the News

Swaab wel­comes two new graduates

Will Kingston and Adam Zwi will be under­tak­ing Swaab’s grad­u­ate pro­gram, includ­ing three six month rotations. Will has joined our Com­mer­cial…
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Swaab wel­comes new solicitor

Swaab are delight­ed to wel­come Euge Pow­er as a solic­i­tor in our lit­i­ga­tion team. Euge is the sec­ond solic­i­tor to under­take…
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Read more News about Grad­u­ate program