Tony Coyne

Brunel Law School graduate, Real Estate Lawyer and Partner at Blake Morgan

"I chose Brunel University London and Brunel Law School to study for my Law LLB degree due to the quality of teaching, the School's great reputation, and the work placement scheme. I wanted a lead into a law firm and to me, Brunel was by far the best university to offer this opportunity.

I undertook three different work placements which ultimately gave me the direct leads I was hoping for. Brunel was great in helping to secure my placements. My first placement was at Nottingham Magistrates court, not far from where I’m from and my second placement took me to a law firm in London. My third placement was at a long established, leading law firm, in Nottingham, covering all areas of law, whereby I was offered a two-year training contract upon successfully completing my degree at Brunel and my solicitors examinations. 

After I completed my training contract and qualified as a solicitor, I moved to London to work in real estate to get greater exposure to more high profile and sophisticated commercial real estate work and clients.  

I now work as a real estate lawyer and am one of the Partners at Blake Morgan law firm in the City where I head up the London real estate team. Blake Morgan is a top 50 law firm with 130 partners and over 1,000 staff. We have six offices in London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Reading, Oxford and Cardiff.

I am also a Legal Advisor to the Institute of Directors and have recently taken up the position of Honorary Professor at the Brunel Law School.

My advice to a student wanting to study Law and enter the legal profession would be to study the Law LLB degree with the placement option. Taking the work placement LLB degree gave me the option of counting my work placement time against my training contract time to reduce the period necessary to qualify as a solicitor.

When applying for positions as a newly qualified solicitor, in addition to my training contract experience, I was also able to include in my CV my work placement experience which I believe gave me an edge over other applicants at that critical early stage in my career.

Studying at Brunel opened up some fantastic career opportunities for me. The work placement option helped me greatly in terms of increasing my confidence in dealing with both qualified lawyers and other professional people as well as dealing with a variety of clients and types of legal work.

I had a terrific time at Brunel and made great friends who have all gone on to have successful legal careers. Campus life was fantastic and I also loved how close Brunel was to go to central London, just a short tube journey away – so I got the best of both worlds!

I am very proud of the fact that I have been able to offer work experience to some excellent Brunel Law School undergraduates, some of whom have gone on to secure solicitor training contracts with Blake Morgan and other leading Law firms such as Clifford Chance and MacFarlanes."

Blake Morgan Brand Ambassador Scheme

Blake Morgan operates a Brand Ambassador Scheme at a limited number of universities, including Brunel University London.

Brunel Law School students are encouraged to apply for a Brand Ambassador role, which gives access to various opportunities with Blake Morgan. 

Saskia Rock-Williams, Brunel Law School undergraduate student and Blake Morgan Brand Ambassador

Tony Coyne, Brunel Law School graduate and Partner with Blake Morgan, Nadia Ullah, Brunel Law School graduate and Blake Morgan Trainee Solicitor, and Saskia Rock-Williams, Brunel Law School undergraduate and Blake Morgan Brand Ambassador in the Blake Morgan London office