Aman Hameed reflects on her experience taking part in the Olliers Summer Internship in June 2026.

Before the Internship:

Before starting the Olliers summer internship, I was a little bit nervous but mostly very excited about the week ahead. Olliers really stood out to me when I was researching and applying for summer internships, particularly because it was a criminal defence firm that was offering real hands-on experience which makes me extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Monday 29th June 2026:

My first day at Olliers began with an induction with Stacey Mabrouk, where she went through what I could expect from the week, gave me an office tour and introduced me to some of the team working that day. I also met Matthew Claughton and Ruth Peters who I had a brief chat with about my route into law, my sociology degree, and my future goals.

After that I was given the opportunity to read through two of the firm’s most recent murder cases, which were extremely interesting. Later that day I met with Sonia Lourenco who is part of the DBS team, and she introduced me to the area of law as I was not that familiar with it. It was nice to find out that she was a fellow non-law student who had also done the Olliers summer internship a few years back. After discussing her route into law, it gave me some reassurance and hope that there was most certainly a space for non-law students in law. We discussed a current case for a client who wanted to remove an arrest record, and Sonia invited me to attend a conference on Wednesday morning for this client. She gave me two examples of representation applications that had previously been sent asking for PNC records to be deleted so I could look over them.

Tuesday 30th June 2026:

My second day started by reading through the two example DBS representations I was given so that I was prepared to draft my own after the meeting on Wednesday with the DBS team.

I had been doing this for around an hour before being taken to the Magistrate’s Court with Jack Tomlinson to a bail hearing for a client. He had done a police interview with them the night before. Jack was surprised at how quick the turnaround had been from arrest to hearing but he felt it was down to the seriousness of the charges. The charges included threats to kill, criminal damage, GBH, ABH and false imprisonment. The client only accepted the charge of criminal damage. We met the client and discussed their options; Jack was clear and transparent with the client about these options and the likelihood of success. It was decided that we would request the court to adjourn until the next morning whilst an alternative address for bail was sorted out. It was explained to the client that this would mean they would be remanded in prison overnight, the client understood as it would allow for a better chance of being granted bail. While waiting for the hearing at the Magistrates’ Court, I was able to watch three other court hearings which were a bonus!

Wednesday 1st July 2026:

Today I had a client call with Sonia from the DBS team. Sonia prepped me beforehand on what to expect from the call and how it tends to work. She also gave me some more information that her colleague Nathalie Potter had gathered on a previous phone call with the client. I was told that the aim of our meeting was to gather as much information as we could about the clients’ arrest, the incident that occurred and what happened before and after the arrest. We called the client and I made notes to write about in the representations I was asked to draft afterwards. This case involved an allegation of domestic related assault and the client wanted it removed as it had started to affect his employment and immigration status. Once the client had explained everything to us in detail, Sonia informed the client of the next steps, including what was needed by the client to support the application and how long they should be expecting to wait before hearing a decision. For the rest of the afternoon, I started drafting the representations for this case.

Thursday 2nd July 2026:

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend a trial at Manchester Crown Court. The trial had been going on for the whole week so on this day I was able to hear the defence closing speech as well as the judge summing up the evidence that had been heard throughout the trial to the jury before they went to start making their decision. This case involved the allegation of sexual abuse of a child and it was very interesting to see the differences between the processes in the Crown Court compared to the Magistrates’ Court that I went to on Tuesday.

Friday 3rd July 2026:

Today I went with Tilly Affleck to Oxford Road train station as she needed to request some CCTV footage for a case that involved an allegation of assault. Whilst there, she took photos of any cameras that were within the area that CCTV footage was needed. We then spoke to the manager who explained the best way to request the CCTV footage. I then came back to the office and went through two police station booklets that had been completed by Hannah Poole and Hope Rea the previous night. It was interesting to see the initial stages that happen when a client is first arrested.