Danny Lee, Don't Miss the Chance for a Job for Life Enhancement, The Times, Supplement (London), October 19, 2004.

Most graduates in these career obsessed times dream of stepping out of their legal practice exams and into a plum job at a firm they would be happy to stay at for the rest of their days. Some young people are gaining work experience that will change their, and other people's, lives. Nicholas Havers, a 25 year old trainee at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, had his eyes opened to a different world when he worked in the United States on death row defences with the charity Reprieve for three months last pear.

The charity provides legal representation and humanitarian assistance to impoverished people facing the death penalty in America and the Caribbean. "The most persuasive reason for doing it was given by Reprieve," Havers says.

"Its advert said. 'You will never be askcd to do anything unnecessary and all that you do is to further the defence of those the State is trying to kill.' That stark message drew me to the work. I already had a fascination with the US justice system from books and films, and the death penalty as a concept is so fundamental that it is difficult not to have a view on it."

Havers, like all people working for Reprieve, opposes the death penalty, but he still had to work within the system to get the best results. "Interns do a wide range of things, from case and legal research to interviewing witnesses and investigating forensic reports."

For a lot of the time he worked on the case of a black British woman, aged 46 and from St Kitts and Nevis, who was accused of kidnapping and homicide. To help to defend her, he had to meet her for an extensive interview It had a profound effect on him.

"It was daunting at first," he says. "But she quite quickly put me at ease. Once you meet someone who has been condemned, the debate moves from larger abstract, moral questions to a very personal level. She is always at the back of my mind."

Encounters such as Havers's, or experience at a law centre, Citizens Advice Bureaux or other similar organisations, can be invaluable. says Julie Swan, the head of education and training at the Law Society.

"Many students find this work hugely rewarding and it can provide a useful foundation for their formal training. It can also offer an insight into the realities of working in a legal environment as well as relevant work experience."

Havers, who still helps Reprieve outside his work for Freshfields, agrees. "The work in the US has developed me personally," he says. "It was very intense and the experience of working for long hours and under pressure is very useful and transferable to what I do here. It prepared me for dealing with big, weighty cases. It inculcated in me the sense that the system often gets it wrong. I am more prepared to scrutinise anything I am told."

Alison Gibbons, aged 25 and training with Linklaters, was seconded from the firm to the Mary Ward Legal Centre, West London, for three months this year. Linklaters sends a volunteer trainee to work at the centre every few months. Gibbons couldn't wait to put her name forward.

"I'm interested in litigation and I thought this would be a good opportunity to put the skills I learnt at the firm into practice," she says. "You get the opportunity to develop skills, such as drafting of proceedings and dealing with judicial review, that you couldn't do at Linklaters until much later."

''It was a real privilege to deal with individuals and people's lives at the centre. One client came to see us with a warrant for eviction the next day and we were able to get it suspended. It was great to be able to help so directly. It makes you realise that the law is not just for corporations."

"Everything I learnt at the centre is directly transferable to working at Linklaters, from communication and advocacy skills to drafting. I'm certainly planning to continue to support the centre."

Most people gain from this kind of experience, but some people even find that it changes their view of the law and acts as a bridge to finding a job. Michael Parry, 37, worked at a Citizens Advice Bureau after training at a local authority.

"I planned to move into high street private practice work and felt I first needed the experience dealing with clients that CAB work would give me."

Once he started work at the CAB, he became committcd to social law. "Up to the time I worked with the CAB I didn't know what it was like to work with clients. There was a cultural barrier between local authority work and private practice work. After working in the CAB I wanted to work with members of the public and clients rather than large institutions. I wanted to have an effect on a personal level for people."

He had a brief period in private practice at Hornby & Levy in London before he realised that he wanted to return to more full blooded social law. He now works for the housing charity Shelter's legal department.