“I am currently a first seat trainee at a medium-sized firm. I have previous legal experience, and so am considering requesting that I have six months knocked off my training contract.

“Whilst obviously the current climate is not ideal for becoming an NQ lawyer, hopefully in a year’s time or so things might have picked up slightly, but would qualifying earlier than the current trainees in my intake give me a head start in terms of getting an NQ position? Obviously I would only consider doing this if it was made clear that there was a position available to me.

“Is reducing the length of a training contract common practice?”

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