Volkswagen Group and Shoosmiths: A ‘first of its kind’ internship

The Volkswagen Group (VWG) legal team has been working on some interesting projects, including how it can make an impact to improve diversity and promote social mobility.

Shoosmiths provided VWG with a secondee who shared their passion and vision for new ideas and change.

Client offering

Through its passion and commitment to making change happen, our client VWG created a first of its kind internship which provides places to those who are under-represented in the legal profession.?

A great effort to promote diversity and social mobility in the legal industry.

The market

Social mobility is a key area of focus for many organisations, not least related to the legal sector.?

Background and circumstance are no longer disqualifiers to careers in the legal profession. Pivotal to this perspective is the inclination to act and provide tangible means for underrepresented groups to be considered within an environment of fair access for all.

The solution

Through sharing the same focus and a passion to implement change, VWG created a new initiative working with Shoosmiths.?

Tarn Kaur , a Shoosmiths trainee secondee, worked with the inhouse legal team at VWG to develop the intern programme to promote diversity within the legal industry.

"Without a focus on underrepresented groups, there is a great risk of leaving behind individuals with great potential. All lawyers should be regularly asking themselves ‘what have I done to help those lessprivileged than myself?’"

Amanda Callear, Senior Legal Counsel, Volkswagen Group

The first cohort of legal interns started in July 2021 and they not only developed their knowledge on the job about different areas of law, but were supported on their route into the profession, working with 12 lawyers and trainee solicitors from VWG and Shoosmiths during their two weeks.

The response?

Within 48 hours of posting about the initiative on LinkedIn, Amanda Callear, senior IHL at VWG, had over 10,000 views of her post . It’s clearly an area of interest and clients are keen to share ideas and ways to move the agenda forward.

For Tarn, the firm celebrated her contribution by awarding her with an employee recognition award which acknowledges the enormous impact her input had to the intern programme.

Social mobility is a key area of our ESG agenda, and we are exploring further partnerships with clients, like this one with VWG, to increase the opportunities for those who are under-represented in the legal profession.

At VWG, the internship programme is going from strength-to-strength, and the doors recently opened to their 2022 cohort of legal interns.

Read more about the progress and impact the firm made during 2021-22 in our Impact Report .