Law Business Research (LBR) is offering ambitious young journalists the opportunity to join our newsroom in 2022 in our inaugural graduate trainee reporter scheme. 

LBR is a technology-enabled information services business powering the global legal industry. We deliver must-have intelligence to our clients when they need it, through a combination of time-sensitive insight, proprietary data and analytics, expert research, and sophisticated tools, across a range of specialist platforms.

We want to find and train ambitious reporters who can break stories and generate unmissable analysis about important business issues from around the world. If you pass our rigorous selection programme, you will join one of our specialist platforms in a full-time, permanent role.

About The Role

You will be expected to write hard news, make your own contacts and generate long-form features. You will also be expected to contribute to larger projects from time to time – but your main priority will be to create agenda-setting content and be a valuable member of the LBR newsroom.

In the last year, our newsroom has generated agenda-leading content including:

• Reporting the activities of a ‘fixer’ whose contacts with the head of the UK Serious Fraud Office derailed an international corruption trial
• Tracking a money-laundering and scam scheme that targeted trademark applicants, contributing to a change in US government policy
• Reporting that a prominent Paris-based arbitration lawyer was suspended for creating a “sexualised climate” at his law firm, with a court subsequently refusing to overturn the suspension.

We do not expect you to have any prior legal knowledge, or any familiarity with the areas we cover – which include international white-collar crime, competition law, intellectual property, distressed finance and more. But we expect you have a nose for a story and an ability to get your head around complex topics. You should also have an international mindset and be ready to learn quickly.

Our reporters are all well-regarded experts who spot opportunities to generate stories from courts, data, policy changes, and relationships with lawyers, policymakers and more. All members of the editorial team have opportunities to travel internationally. Many of our senior team started and trained here, which demonstrates the supportive environment we offer; other colleagues have moved on to jobs at leading newspapers, B2B publishers, and other roles.

LBR is a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we welcome applications from different backgrounds. We recognise the importance of diverse perspectives in journalism, and strongly believe that having a variety of voices on our team makes our stories better; as such, our ambition is to have more diversity in our newsroom. We thus particularly encourage applications from candidates from BAME backgrounds, where at all stages you will be part of a fair and unbiased, inclusive and accessible recruitment process.

Candidates with a post-graduate qualification in journalism or an NCTJ are preferred, but we consider all graduate applicants with the ability to demonstrate an instinct for news and an ability to write clearly and concisely.

Benefits

We will offer you the opportunity to generate a strong portfolio of stories and build your career in a supportive and encouraging environment that takes personal and professional development seriously. Structured training in topics including how to structure a story, how to write a good headline, media law and how to report from court will be provided, as will on-the-job training from senior members of the editorial team.

You will receive a competitive salary and an excellent benefits package, which includes:

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare
• Physical wellbeing allowance of £350 per year
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Life Assurance
• Pension contribution at 4% by LBR
• Employee assistance programme
• Annual wellbeing days

How To Apply

Apply for this role via the APPLY button. Please include a cover letter that explains why you would like to pursue a career in journalism. Please also mention Journo Resources when applying, it really helps us out. We would also like to see any writing samples you may have; this could be in the form of a blog or articles you have contributed to at a student paper.