qLegal Externship Programme

Through this programme, students provide affordable legal and commercial support to start-ups while advancing their skills.

If you're a start-up seeking legal assistance or a postgrad law student eager to tackle real-world challenges, explore our programme details and apply before the deadline.

While externs are not UK-qualified solicitors and cannot provide final legal advice, their contributions offer significant benefits. Their work not only saves substantial time for your solicitors, thus reducing your bill but also provides a fresh perspective. This perspective can empower your understanding of industry laws and business operations. Moreover, having an extern working with your start-up provides valuable experience in onboarding and managing staff.

Programme overview

• qLegal is Queen Mary University of London's law clinic, offering legal and commercial support to start-ups by postgraduate law students
• Externships involve postgraduate law students joining a start-up team for one day per week over six months
• Externs provide support alongside studies, with a break of up to four weeks in December-January for exams
• Externs are matched based on interests and skill sets; can be in-person, remote or hybrid
• Encouraged to participate in team meetings and social events

Examples of extern tasks:

• Create a guide or explanation of the legislation so that you can have fruitful conversations with your lawyer
• Develop the team’s understanding of the legal parts of their business and of legal processes that start-ups should focus their energy on
• Compliance and Regulations Research compliance requirements in a specific industry
• Create a database of relevant claims and assessed risk
• Read through a contract to flag issues or create a first draft of a document for the lawyers to spend less time reviewing/contributing to it
• Research existing trademarks and domain name databases and filing costs and renewal
• Research trademark attorneys and get things ready to be approved by and filled by a trademark attorney
• Collate company guidance on employment matters in a staff handbook 
• Give guidance on GDPR compliance (map user journey, ICO checklist on what the company needs, run through those and flag what is missing, what other companies of a similar size/industry are doing)
• Research specific data privacy requirements when dealing with specific types of data (e.g. medtech products) Reviewed privacy policy and listed the documents you need in place to raise funding, with the documents to be drafted by an external solicitor.
• Lay the foundations of legal documentation at the company
• Check company’s filings, prepare checklists of what needs to be filed and by when (something will need to be filed every year, or when there have been any changes)
• Make a guide on how to hold directors' meetings and how to document any kind of resolutions

Programme timeline

• Deadline to apply: Friday, 6 September 2024, 11:59 pm
• Programme duration: Mid-October 2024 to Mid-April 2025

Payment of externs

Participating in our programme is completely free. The qLegal team will select the extern for you based on your specific interests and skill requirements.

However, we encourage founders who can afford to pay students the London Minimum Wage to do so. In that case, we will give you the opportunity to interview three pre-selected students before making your final selection.

Eligibility requirements

Open to start-ups looking to gain support from motivated Master's students eager to apply their knowledge.