Freshfields Offers LL.M in LLMs For New Lawyers – Artificial Lawyer

Global law firm Freshfields is to offer its new junior lawyers the chance to do an LL.M in how ‘tech and AI will enhance the provision of legal services’. In short, it’s an LL.M in LLMs.

The legal innovation-focused course will be provided in partnership with The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London, and will be for a ‘select group of future trainees’ [i.e. junior associates just out of law school].

The firm said that this is an example of its ‘commitment to investing in the next generation of talent and aligning with the evolving needs of its global clients’.

The LL.M in Law & Technology offering will include:

A fully funded place on the course starting from September 2025 onwards,

A £20,000 maintenance grant during students’ studies,

Opportunities to collaborate with Freshfields’ Innovation team and the Freshfields Lab,

And, continued connection with the firm throughout students’ LL.M studies.

And you may then ask: what does Freshfields get out of this…? The answer is they begin to develop a new generation of young lawyers who are really attuned not just to using ChatGPT to help them write their papers at university, but to the intersection of legal tech….which is now often reliant on the output of LLMs……and the business of law.

Freshfields’ London and Dublin Managing Partner, Mark Sansom (pictured above), who is a big supporter of the initiative, said: ‘As technology and innovation continues to shape the legal industry, our firm is meeting that opportunity head on by investing in the upskilling of trainees at the very start of their careers. This opportunity allows them to develop valuable skills, turbocharge their professional and personal growth, and align with our strategic direction as a global firm.’

And Freshfields’ training principal, Craig Montgomery, added: ‘The best-in-class lawyers we are hiring today will be leading our firm through the 2030s and beyond. So this is about super-charging their skills to really understand the technology that is and will be available to us and the opportunities and legal challenges it will present for our clients.’

Professor Dan Hunter, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, concluded: ‘It is fantastic to partner with Freshfields in supporting the next generation of legal professionals. Trainees undertaking the LL.M will become part of the global legal community of one of the world’s finest law schools, and benefit from the breadth and depth of our academic expertise in artificial intelligence and digital law.’

Is this a big deal?

Well, it’s not the first time a law firm has offered additional educational support to train up the lawyers of the future, but it has both a significant practical and cultural aspect. Practical in the sense that they clearly recognise just being a very good lawyer may not be enough as the business of law changes due to the impact of AI; and cultural in the sense they are sending a message internally and externally to the clients, that the firm is taking this evolution of the market very seriously. So, congrats on that.

The move comes not long after the Magic Circle firm announced it was ‘joining forces’ with Google Cloud to roll out its Gemini LLM capabilities across the business, as well as use Google’s Vertex AI platform to create bespoke AI agents for its legal and business processes.

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Legal Innovators Conferences in New York and London – Both In November ’25

If you’d like to stay ahead of the legal AI curve….then come along to Legal Innovators New York, Nov 19 + 20, where the brightest minds will be sharing their insights on where we are now and where we are heading. 

And also, Legal Innovators UK – Nov 4 + 5 + 6

Both events, as always, are organised by the awesome Cosmonauts team! 

Please get in contact with them if you’d like to take part.