Global law firm Pinsent Masons has posted its latest retention score. Of the 72 trainees due to qualify this September, 57 have put pen to paper on permanent deals and will be taking up newly qualified (NQ) associate roles — or 79%.
Deborah McCormack, head of early talent, said: “At Pinsent Masons our newly qualified trainees will be empowered to think innovatively and champion change to ensure our business is operating at its best for both our clients and our people. I’m pleased to welcome them into an environment where they’ll have the opportunity to thrive.”
Legal Cheek‘s Firms Most List shows Pinsents’ newest recruits will start on a recently improved salary of £72,500, while their counterparts in the regions and Scotland will earn £44,000 and £43,500 respectively. The firm’s London trainees earn £41,000 in year one, rising to £44,000 in year two.
Last week Pinsents confirmed a 2.5% uplift in gross profit to £192 million but a 5% downturn in profit per equity partner (PEP) from £653,000 to £620,000. Global turnover hit £482 million for the year ending 30 April, which equates to a rise of 7%.
“The past year has been one of unprecedented change and complexity for our clients,” managing partner John Cleland said. “We’re continuing the transformation of our business from an expertise-based law firm into a modern, international professional services business with law at its core.”
A common misconception among students is that all City lawyers are perfectly alike, in that they all share a particular upbringing or background. “That is just not the case,” stressed Jeremy Levy, a partner in Baker McKenzie’s banking and finance team. Speaking to an audience of 160 students at ‘How to become a City lawyer’, Levy explained:
“If I think back to the most impressive lawyers that I have come across during the course of my career, there is no unifying factor in terms of their background, sexuality or gender. The only key factor is that they are good lawyers.”
That said, when trying to woo City graduate recruiters, aspiring lawyers need to do more than simply tick boxes. “Remember the interviewer is not interviewing a CV,” said Lewis Fairfax, an associate in Hogan Lovells’ corporate litigation, investigations, contentious insolvency and fraud team. “They’re not just looking at the CV and going, ‘This all looks very good. This is nothing but a formality, come on in’. They are looking for someone they can work with; someone they can put in front of a client,” he stressed.
So while strong academic credentials and work experience remain important factors, City law hopefuls shouldn’t neglect their soft skills. “I’m not talking about being an absolute charmer or the wittiest person in the world,” said Fairfax. “It’s just about sitting in that interview and thinking, they are more interested in how I respond to a question and the way I react to being under pressure than they are to whatever grade I got in this module in second year.”
When quizzed in interviews, training contract hunters should also avoid offering up responses they believe the firm wants to hear. “It’s very easy to see if someone is being genuine or not,” Levy said. “Often there’s a temptation in applications or when doing an interview, when asked a question like, ‘What do you do to relax?’, to say, ‘Well I wake up at 3am, read the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal; go to the gym for four hours and then I do my work and after that I run a business’,” Levy commented. If that answer describes you, great — but if it doesn’t, that’s also fine. Don’t feel the need to over-impress; instead, just be you. “There’s no right or wrong answers to a lot of these questions. Unless you’re saying something illegal, 99% of the answers to that question will be fine,” he added.
Left to right: Caroline Rayson, Sarah Rochelle, Lewis Fairfax, Katharine Collard and Jeremy Levy
2. Show your working out
At some point in their careers, City solicitors will be asked a tough question to which they won’t know the answer — and firms are keen to replicate this pressure-filled environment at the interview stage. As Katharine Collard, an associate at Linklaters, explained:
“The job of that interviewer is to push you until you actually can’t answer that question anymore. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. All of the reasoning and logic you’ve used to get to that point is impressive, and that’s what they’re looking for.”
According to Collard, interviewers want to see how candidates react in a real-life scenario. “If you are put in front of a client who asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer, what are you going to say in that situation?” Collard put to attendees. Rather than panic at this, talk through your thinking and the logic that gets you to a reasoned response.
3. If you don’t understand — ask!
And when you eventually bag a City training contact and are exposed to big-ticket work, there will inevitably be complex legal jargon or highly technical instructions that you do not understand. A common mistake trainees make, the panel agreed, is not reaching out for clarification. Often holding them back is “wanting to look like everything’s fine and they know what they’re doing,” observed Sarah Rochelle, a senior associate in Mayer Brown’s real estate team. She revealed to be very wary of this habit:
“If you’re not asking any questions, if you’re not saying anything at all, straight away I’m thinking you haven’t really understood it.”
Failing to speak up from the start can lead to problems later down the line. “It can be a source of frustration among senior lawyers, if trainees sit there and stew for half a day, and then come back and say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t understand’, stressed Caroline Rayson, deputy head of law at BPP Holborn, and former associate at City outfits Ashurst and Osborne Clarke. “For goodness’ sake, if you don’t understand, go straight back and ask!”
Fairfax revealed that he experienced first-hand these consequences two weeks into his second seat at Hogan Lovells’ securitisation team in Paris. “I was presented with this suite of documents that I’d never seen before, but everyone else around me had. I very much had the feeling that, ‘I’ve got to look like I know what I’m doing, I’ve got to look competent’, but you end up making little mistakes that roll into much bigger mistakes and it’s just not worth it,” he reflected. “Make sure you do communicate because bottling up your problems and your mistakes is not a good way to make your work good,” he added.
In the latest instalment of our Career Conundrums series, one soon-to-be trainee lawyer is torn between starting her career at magic circle law firm in the Middle East and a US outfit in London.
“Hello team! I have a career conundrum and was looking for some advice. I have two training contract offers for magic circle firms in the Middle East – but I also have an offer for a US firm for their London office. Genuinely interested in what people have experienced living and working for law firms in Dubai. Culture? Pay? Hours? And whether or not it is worth it to take the option to get some Middle East experience over a US firm early on in a career in law. I would appreciate some insight from readers!”
City firm mulls doing a DWF in bid to raise capital, according to report
Mishcon de Reya is said to be considering a stock market float or stake sale in a move that would value the City player at “several hundred million pounds”.
According to Sky News, Mishcon is currently exploring two ways of raising capital: either by listing itself on the public stock market in hope to attract new investors or selling off a stake to a private equity investor. The move, if given the go-ahead, could generate big payouts for the outfit’s 156 partners. Mishcon is set to appoint bankers in the coming months to inspect its options.
However, the firm, who acted for anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller in her successful legal battle that forced the government to seek parliament’s approval before triggering Article 50, has yet to make any formal decision about the stock market manoeuvre.
A spokesperson for Mishcon said:
“Mishcon de Reya has delivered significant growth over the past 15 years. As a financially robust and dynamic firm we have ambitious plans for the next phase of growth and to achieve this are considering all options for raising capital. No decisions have yet been made.”
A listing, which is unlikely to take place until next year, would see Mishcon join a number big legal players already found on the public market. The first to float was Gateley in 2015, and has since been followed by Gordon Dadds, Keystone Law, Rosenblatt Solicitors, Knights Law and DWF.
The potential initial public offering (IPO) value of Mischon, known for representing Princess Diana during her divorce from the Prince of Wales, is unclear. Depending on the amount raised from the sale of its new shares, reports indicate the firm could eventually match international outfit DWF, which boasts a market value of £368 million since floating earlier this year.
Founded in 1937 in Brixton, South London, Mishcon currently sits within the top 30 UK law firms by revenue, which increased 8% to £161.3 million last year, a slight slowdown on its 17% growth the year before. Profit per equity partner fell by 9% to £1 million. Mischon is set to release its latest set of annual figures this week.
A trainee solicitor who was sacked from DWF for sharing client information with a friend has lost a claim for unfair dismissal.
Hayley Tansey was sacked from the global outfit in September 2017 — weeks before she was due to qualify — after she admitted, among other things, sending emails containing confidential client information to a friend and to her own personal email address.
Tansey initially worked with the firm between late 2013 and 2014 “on an occasional basis” in order to gain work experience, according to an employment tribunal judgment. The unremunerated role came about because of her “close personal friendship” with one of the firm’s partners, Rachel Jones, and on the understanding that she was to be offered a contract of employment with DWF.
The judgment states: “One of the reasons Ms Jones was keen to have the respondent appoint the claimant was that she was a mature student coming into the legal profession after a career in banking… She then was involved in two businesses of which she was a director, Brigantia Limited and Brigantia Funding LLP, both operated by the claimant’s friend and mentor Gina Ramsay.”
It was during her period of work experience that Jones sent Tansey a number of emails containing confidential client information.
Tansey secured a paralegal role in October 2014 and became a trainee solicitor with the firm in September 2015.
In March 2017, DWF discovered the rookie lawyer had sent two emails to clients in breach of its supervision policy, which required all trainees to refer outgoing emails to a supervisor or more senior colleague.
Jones was made aware of the issue and was granted access to Tansey’s email account, which showed she had been sending emails containing client information to her friend Ramsay and her own private email address.
The information, according to the judgment, included: “legal advice which was subject to legal professional privilege; Key Client updates compiled by the respondent; a template zero hours contract produced for a client; and papers relating to litigation with third parties whose identity and personal medical information was disclosed.”
Tansey admitted sending the emails but contended that her dismissal was unfair because her actions were not deliberate, did not amount to gross misconduct and did not justify dismissal.
The judgment continued: “Her explanation for forwarding information was that it was for her own personal development, and also because she and Ms Ramsay enjoyed discussing law with each other. Ms Ramsay had an academic interest in law although she was no longer practising, after previously working as a solicitor in Australia.”
Tansey said she had forwarded the zero hours contract to Ramsay because she asked about one for her cleaning staff, while she did not believe the “Key Client updates” were confidential as they contained information about them which was in the public domain. She did, however, concede that by sending these to Ramsay she was disclosing the names of the respondent’s clients, which was itself confidential information.
Despite Tansey’s arguments to the contrary, the tribunal said the “highly confidential material” disclosed to Ramsay bore no comparison with the information she received from Jones via email during work experience.
The tribunal ruled her dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses by DWF.
A DWF spokesperson told Legal Cheek: “We are pleased that the tribunal has found in favour of DWF and that the matter can now be brought to a close.”
Former City lawyer will reportedly hand in resignation on Wednesday
Lord Chancellor David Gauke has confirmed he will resign from the cabinet on Wednesday because he cannot serve under Boris Johnson if he wins the race to become prime minister.
The Justice Secretary, who took the top government legal post in January last year, said he could not sit on the frontbench while Johnson pursued a no deal Brexit. Johnson, who has said he will pull Britain out of the bloc “do or die” come 31 October (the UK’s rescheduled EU departure date), is expected to be confirmed as the new Tory leader tomorrow.
Gauke, a prominent no deal critic who has voiced his concerns that a departure as such would be a national “humiliation”, told The Sunday Times he will stand down before May’s successor takes over. “Given that I’ve been in the cabinet since Theresa May came to power, I think the appropriate thing is for me to resign to her,” he said.
He added: “If the test of loyalty to stay in the cabinet is a commitment to support no deal on October 31 — which, to be fair to him, Boris has consistently said — then that’s not something I’m prepared to sign up to.”
The legal profession paid tribute to Gauke once news of his departure broke. Philip Marshall QC, joint head of chambers at family law set 1KBW, said: “If true, this is a great shame. David Gauke has been an excellent Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Sadly that now counts for nothing. It’s all about Brexit. His principled opposition to no deal is to be applauded. Heaven only knows who his successor will be.”
Meanwhile legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg bid farewell to Gauke, “friend of the judiciary”, in a recent article anticipating his departure.
Gauke, who began his career as a trainee solicitor with Reed Smith before joining Macfarlanes and then making the move into politics, has been a well-liked Justice Secretary (not least for his use of amusing GIFs and self-deprecating humour!). He is perhaps most well-known for introducing the far-reaching ‘no fault’ divorce bill into parliament which has just passed its second reading in the House of Commons.
Gauke took over from non-lawyer David Lidington whose six-month stint in the post (the shortest serving Lord Chancellor since the late 1980s) was even less time than his much-disliked predecessor Elizabeth Truss. Truss spent 11 months in the top job and was, of course, heavily criticised for her failure to defend judges against scathing tabloid headlines such as the notorious Daily Mail ‘ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE’ one following the Article 50 High Court ruling in 2016.
The Lord Chancellor role has, historically, been a well-respected one filled exclusively by lawyers. In recent years we have seen numerous chancellorships in quick succession, leaving one Twitter user to quip: “One day, everyone will be Lord Chancellor for 15 minutes”. It remains to be seen who Johnson (if he wins the leadership contest) will appoint as Justice Secretary, with former Linklaters lawyer Dominic Raab being tipped for the post.
Gauke — the MP for South West Hertfordshire since 2005 — voted Remain in the EU referendum. His resignation, along with several other key ministers keen to avoid a no deal scenario, has been dubbed the ‘Gaukeward squad’. At 47, Gauke has signalled his intention to stay in politics and serve again once Brexit is settled.
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Magic circle law firm Linklaters has posted its autumn 2019 retention score, revealing 49 out of its 54 soon-to-be associates were staying put post-qualification. This hands the firm, which received four resignations, a retention result of 91%.
“We are pleased once again to retain a high number of quality lawyers from our September qualifiers,” Richard Hodgson, trainee development partner at Linklaters, said. “Attracting, developing and retaining the best people is crucial to the success of our business and we look forward to seeing their careers progress at our globally minded firm.”
The firm, which offers roughly 100 training contracts each year, more than any other City outfit, posted a spring 2019 score of 80% (41 out of 51) and an autumn 2018 result of 73% (43 out of 59).
ULaw Nottingham campus dean and former real estate partner Andy Matthews shares insights from his time in practice ahead of the ‘Secrets to Success’ event on Thursday
ULaw Nottingham campus dean Andy Matthews
This September The University of Law (ULaw) opens its doors to a 150-strong cohort of law students at its new Nottingham campus — its ninth in the country. The building, conveniently located in the city centre at One Royal Standard Place and in close proximity to a plethora of law firms, is fully equipped, the vast majority of students have been recruited and the staff (there’s 20 in total) have all been appointed.
Andy Matthews, dean at ULaw Nottingham, is two months in to his position and is putting the final plans in place. The former lawyer and formidable player in the East Midlands market having lived and practised there for the most part of his career, has been busy building connections between the campus (which alongside ULaw’s centres in Leeds and London Moorgate, have been termed ‘legal tech hubs’) and local law firms. “It was an opportunity that struck me as an incredibly worthwhile challenge — to take my knowledge of the local legal market and help power-up the next generation of lawyers in the region,” he says.
It’s a market which Matthews has seen thrive over the years. “The firms have upscaled and are hugely better run. The skillset and specialities of lawyers are also different to what they used to be. We have a good number of law firms producing quality work,” he says. “It’s not quite magic circle but the work is comparable to London.” After all, firms such as Browne Jacobson, Freeths, Gateley and Shoosmiths — all of whom will be represented on the panel at Thursday’s ‘Secrets to Success’ event in Nottingham — have “a significant London presence”. It’s not a trade-off, as some might think, between quality of work and work/life balance in London and the regions, notes Matthews. “We need to encourage this mindset more and with the opening of our new Nottingham campus, that is exactly our intention,” he adds.
Before he joined ULaw Matthews had an extensive practice in real estate law. What the former Gateley partner enjoyed most was seeing the “real, tangible results” of his commercial property dealings. “I could be involved in the sale and purchase of land and then months later see a housing complex built there,” he explains.
Matthews joined Gateley’s Nottingham office in spring 2008 — that was the “pits of the recession” — he reflects. Back then he was one of only two lawyers in the team. The challenge then was to build and establish a new real estate unit for the firm in Nottingham against the backdrop of what was considered to be a particularly trying time. So they did. By the time Matthews left this year the team of two had grown sevenfold — to 14.
Matthews treasures the time he spent there. As a non-contentious transactional lawyer he primarily dealt with investment acquisitions, acted for banks and undertook landlord and tenant work. He also advised clients on commercial and residential developments and recalls seeing “nothing more satisfying than the lifecycle of a development: when a client’s land is purchased, built upon, let or sold”. His working day would vary but often involved meeting with clients, conducting due diligence, attending site inspections or negotiating sales. Alongside fee-earning Matthews was also managing partner at Gateley, first in its Nottingham branch and later in Leicester.
Budding solicitors hoping to qualify in real estate law should demonstrate drive, initiative and do their research, says Matthews. He explains: “It’s impressive when a trainee has researched beforehand the client they’ll be working for — it’s not always down to your supervisor to tell you.” This extends further: “A young lawyer coming in should take the time to get to know the parties to a transaction. It’s not a job you can do in isolation — you’ll be liaising with clients, bankers, agents, architects and more,” he says.
Matthews, who was involved in trainee recruitment at Gateley, goes on to stress that there are some students who are fixed on qualifying in a particular area of law (which is fine) but in some cases it’s important not to pigeonhole yourself too early. At first, you’ll have to decide what type of lawyer you want to be: whether that’s conducting big-ticket transactions in the City at a large commercial outfit or running legal aid work at a high street practice. Both are worthy ways to go but are very different to each other. This decision will ultimately determine where you apply for training contracts, he says. Then, if like Matthews you’re commercial-oriented, he advises keeping an “open mind” and fully immersing yourself in the various seats of your training contract.
Matthews admits that when he started his training contract, he didn’t know he’d wind up in real estate: “The property world though had always interested me. I enjoyed reading about how towns and cities change but for my career, I wasn’t 100% certain.” But the rest is history, and Matthews says he enjoyed a “rewarding and fulfilling” career in law since.
Andy Matthews will be speaking alongside lawyers from Browne Jacobson, Freeths, Gateley and Shoosmiths at Thursday’s ‘Secrets to Success’ event, held at The University of Law’s new Nottingham tech hub campus. You can apply to attend the event, which is free, now.
A lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis called on the firm’s fancy concierge service to purchase shoes for her two precious pet pooches on her behalf.
Regular Legal Cheek readers will recall how we reported last year that Kirkland had seriously upped its perk game, rolling out a new firm-wide 24-hour helper service to handle the personal tasks and errands of its hardworking lawyers.
And it appears the firm’s service, dubbed ‘Kirkland Concierge’, has prompted a number of requests — some more unusual than others.
As reported by the website Forbes, one unnamed associate asked the concierge to buy two pairs of “dog booties” for her two canine companions. “After extensive research”, the report continues, the Kirkland concierge found a store that still had dog booties in stock in the “middle of a winter storm”.
Other requests cited in the article include fetching a coat left by a lawyer in a barbershop; purchasing, assembling and delivering a bicycle to the daughter of a Kirkland lawyer (who was working away) on her birthday; and purchasing and delivering a Christmas tree to a lawyer’s home. There have also been requests to send last-minute flowers, collect train tickets, make store returns and fix a cracked phone screen. As flagged by Legal Cheek last year, one Kirkland lawyer has even used the service to move house.
Kirkland’s lawyers and admin managers can use the mega-perk free of charge, however, personal purchases and out of hours requests requiring a member of the concierge team must be paid for by the lawyer.
Commenting on the service, which is provided through the firm’s external tie-up with Circles by Sodexo, a lifestyle management company, US Kirkland lawyer Samuel Zaretsky said:
“It’s great that companies are acknowledging that employees want to both work hard and maximize their time at work and have stress-free fun and maximize their time outside of work. On-site concierge services enhance both worlds.”
But it’s easy to understand why Kirkland’s lawyers, who start life on a hefty salary of £143,000, would want to maximise their downtime. Legal Cheek‘s Firms Most List shows that junior lawyers in the firm’s London office report an average arrival time of 9:45am and average leave time of 9:49pm — hours roughly in line with other top-paying City outfits.
It’s currently being piloted by Clifford Chance, Pinsent Masons and Withers
A lawtech startup which use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate contract drafting and boasts a former Supreme Court president as one of its supporters has secured over £2 million in financial backing.
Genie AI, founded in 2017 by University College London (UCL) grads Rafie Faruq and Nitish Mutha, just closed a £1.2 million equity investment round led by venture capital fund Connect Ventures. The financial backing announcement follows an earlier £800,000 grant awarded by the UK government’s Research and Innovation scheme.
Alongside the whopping £2 million starting capital, the Cambridge-based company also boasts support from UCL’s Innovation and Enterprise initiative, Barclays Eagle Labs lawtech accelerator, and an expert-led advisory board, on which Lord Neuberger sits.
The startup’s flagship product, SuperDrafter, is an AI contract drafting tool currently being piloted at magic circle firm Clifford Chance and international players Pinsent Masons and Withers.
So how does SuperDrafter work? Scanning thousands of legal documents belonging to a firm, the time-saving tech curates and recommends specific clauses to lawyers as they draft, negotiate and review contracts — all in real-time.
Setting the drafting device apart from rival AI-assisted applications is that the self-learning software does not require manual training by lawyers — freeing up lawyers for more complex work.
According to co-founder Mutha, as reported by UKTN, “SuperDrafter might be the only contract editor to date that natively replicates Microsoft Word, enabling us to provide the familiarity of Word, powered with machine intelligence.”
The funds raised by Genie AI will be used to further develop its patent-pending system, as well as the startup’s new project which seeks to automatically redact confidential client information from contracts in line with GDPR guidelines.
‘He’s hired a big old law firm to basically destroy me’, Femi Oluwole claims
Femi Oluwole
The chairman of the Brexit Party is threatening to bring legal action against law graduate and vocal Remain campaigner Femi Oluwole for calling Leave.EU an “anti-Jewish organisation” in a tweet. Legal Cheek understands that there are two further tweets made by Oluwole that have prompted Tice to instruct lawyers.
In a video posted yesterday, Oluwole explains that he received a letter from Richard Tice’s lawyers, Wedlake Bell, requesting he delete the tweets. Tice, who co-founded Leave.EU in 2015 but left shortly after the referendum, also requested, again through his lawyers, that the Nottingham Uni law and French grad issue an apology and donate £10,000 to charity.
In one of the tweets referred to, posted last Friday, Oluwole wrote: “How have we allowed the Brexit Party to be seen as a tolerant party when its chairman, Richard Tice, founded an overtly anti-Jewish organisation?” The Darlington-born campaigner, who Legal Cheek interviewed earlier this year, was responding to a tweet from Leave.EU, which depicts Jewish billionaire George Soros controlling former prime minister Tony Blair like a puppet.
According to the Guido Fawkes blog, Tice left Leave.EU in June 2016. The tweet Oluwole highlighted was published over two years later in October 2018.
Elsewhere in the video, Oluwole directs viewers to a crowdfunding page which he stresses isn’t to cover any future legal fees, but instead help fund Our Future Our Choice (OFOC), a pro-EU advocacy group he founded in 2017. This, the page explains, “will annoy [Nigel] Farage and his money man Tice far more!” Almost £11,000 has been pledged so far.
In response to the letter, Oluwole, who has called on the services of London media lawyer David Price QC on a pro bono basis, told Legal Cheek:
“The defence of honest opinion is clear. It has to be an opinion and a statement about the attitudes of an organisation — so it can only be an opinion. I have to indicate the factual basis of my opinion, and I did because I quote-tweeted the [allegedly] anti-Semitic tweet. And it has to be the case that an honest person could come to the same conclusion on the same facts. And given all the comments under the original tweet were calling it anti-Semitic, I was not alone in thinking this.”
Tice told the Evening Standard there was “no substance to the allegations whatsoever” and added that “substantial and significant claim is being prepared by our lawyers and counsel and will be issued in short due course”.
Tice and the Brexit Party have been approached for comment.
Litigation funder Harbour has rolled out what is understood to be the sector’s first trainee solicitor scheme after receiving authorisation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
Harbour Litigation Funding is hiring one trainee who will commence a two-year training contract this autumn. They will undertake four seats of six months across different areas, including a secondment to a London law firm Harbour has a close relationship with.
The other seats will take place in the funder’s investment, general counsel and compliance teams, with trainees involved in operational work, commercial relationships, negotiating agreements and fundraising.
Senior director of litigation funding and training principle Mark King said:
“Harbour has always been a market leader in developing the litigation funding industry and in continuing this trend, we are delighted to offer this new and unique opportunity. The Harbour training contract allows you to develop your legal career in an environment where you see first-hand how the fruits of your work impact and develop Harbour’s funding business.”
He added: “It is a bespoke training contract with a strong commercial emphasis for lawyers who want to be a valuable part of decision making within the Harbour business which is at the forefront of a thriving market.”
Harbour is a global litigation funding company based in Waterloo, London, which finances costly litigation or arbitration cases enabling them to proceed. It employs a 13-strong team many of whom are former City lawyers.
The funder launched the programme because it wanted to retain a paralegal, who was planning on undertaking a training contract at a law firm. It successfully applied for authorisation from the SRA and became a training provider. Harbour is now recruiting its first external trainee.
In terms of remuneration, the business (which is not SRA-regulated) has stated the salary will be “competitive” with London firms. Our Firms Most List shows first-year trainee pay figures can vary from anywhere between £35,000 to £55,000.
Former justice minister replaces David Gauke, joining host of other lawyers in BoJo’s cabinet
Freshly-installed Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed former justice minister Robert Buckland QC as the new Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.
Buckland, MP for Swindon South, was called to bar in 1991 and practised as a criminal barrister at Apex Chambers in Cardiff, Wales. He was also a door tenant at 23 Essex Street Chambers, and in 2009 appointed a recorder of the crown court, sitting on the Midland Circuit.
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) July 24, 2019
Buckland secured silk status in 2015 following his appointment as solicitor general, deputy of the attorney general, by the then PM David Cameron. He was made the minister of state at the Ministry of Justice earlier this summer.
Elsewhere during last night’s reshuffle, ex-Linklaters rookie Dominic Raab returned to the cabinet as foreign secretary, while Robert Jenrick, a former lawyer at Skadden and Sullivan & Cromwell, was made secretary of state for housing. Geoffrey Cox QC, a former barrister at Thomas More Chambers, retained his role as attorney general.
Matching moves by three out of five magic circle members
Linklaters is offering its future London trainees £10,000 in financial support during the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL).
The new sum equates to an uplift of 25%, up £2,000 on the global outfit’s previous maintenance grant of £8,000. The increase will apply to all students from September 2019 onwards.
Today’s money move means Links is now the fourth member of the magic circle to bump its GDL offering to £10,000. Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Slaughter and May all award their trainees-to-be the coveted five-figure sum. The remaining member of the elite fivesome, Allen & Overy, offers its GDL’ers £9,000.
Linklaters (like with the rest of the magic circle) awards its rookies £10,000 in support during the Legal Practice Course (LPC).
Links’ lot studying outside of London will also see GDL grants swell by 29%. The firm confirmed they will receive £9,000, up £2,000 from £7,000.
The firm’s newest recruits complete the GDL — the year-long conversion course non-law grads must undertake to train as a lawyer — at The University of Law’s Moorgate campus. The firm, which offers around 100 training contracts each year, more than any other City outfit, also fully funds GDL course fees.
Challenger bank OakNorth has recruited three trainees so far
A top UK fintech start-up is to recruit trainee solicitors for the first time.
OakNorth, a so-called ‘challenger bank’ specialising in business and property loans, has launched a training contract programme in its London office after receiving authorisation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
The bank, founded in 2015 but already valued at an eyewatering £2.2 billion, currently employs three paralegals in its Soho HQ. Up until now they would have had to complete their training contracts elsewhere in order to qualify. OakNorth says it has recruited three trainees so far but will take on external hires as its legal team grows.
The firm’s first rookie, Magdalena Wierzchowska, joined OakNorth in 2016 initially as a paralegal-secondee from Reed Smith‘s banking and finance team. Wierzchowska, who completed her Legal Practice Course (LPC) at The University of Law, made the switch to OakNorth permanent in 2017.
The training contract itself will see trainees complete seats of up to six months each in the start-up’s finance and real estate teams, as well as a stint in litigation through a secondment with a City firm OakNorth has collaborated with in the past, such as Reed Smith, Mishcon de Reya or Addleshaw Goddard.
Ben Wulwik, head of legal and transaction management at OakNorth, told Legal Cheek:
“A large part of the training contract, similar to that of external law firms, is on the job training. On top of offering them significant exposure to front end transactions and leading loan transactions, the programme also allows them total access to credits teams, credit committee, debt finance directors and clients, to ensure full exposure to all parts of the business.”
Wulwik didn’t divulge what trainees can expect to receive in terms of salary, however OakNorth did state that it was “above the regular market rate”.
OakNorth’s foray into solicitor training comes ahead of some major changes to legal education, namely the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE). As part of the shake-up, the SRA aims to create a more flexible pathway to qualification as a solicitor, which will see trainees have the option to complete seats of varying lengths across multiple, approved training providers.
Someone from within O’Melveny & Myers, the US outfit understood to be in merger talks with Allen & Overy, quietly attempted to delete evidence of the firm’s connections to Donald Trump — with mixed results.
However, O’Melveny is adamant that it did not sanction the move.
An admin page for O’Melveny’s Wikipedia entry reveals that on 18 July 2019 a person (or persons) with an IP address linked to the firm’s Los Angeles HQ requested the removal of the entire “Support for the Trump administration” section.
“This is misleading”, they wrote. “O’Melveny & Myers LLP did not publicly support any one candidate during the presidential campaign, and instead, employees supported many different candidates.” The mysterious user goes on to claim that a former partner was responsible for “vetting” President Trump’s nominees, not the firm, and to suggest O’Melveny has shown support for the “Trum [sic] administration” is “subjective, false and misleading, and should be removed”.
Responding to the request, Wikipedia moderators deleted the “Support for the Trump administration” title and moved the offending paragraph to the “history section”, pointing to the fact it hadn’t been appropriately sourced.
They did, however, refuse to wipe the section concerning the US outfit’s vetting of Trump nominees. “Contrary to what 151.194.81.124 wrote (from an O’Melveny & Myers IP address),” one moderator writes, “Arthur Culvahouse was not an ‘ex-partner’ at the time he and other attorneys from O’Melveny & Myers vetted the President’s nominees.” The moderator, who’s clearly done their research, goes on to cite a number of sources to support his decision.
“The firm neither authorised, nor condones, any efforts to alter the O’Melveny Wikipedia page. Our firm is home to many lawyers and staff with varying political opinions and activities. It’s one of our strengths, and we’re proud that members of the firm have been called to service in the Administrations of both parties.”
There is a long and logical tradition of kinship between lawyers and the legislature: the houses of parliament have on occasion been led by lawyers (David Lloyd George, Tony Blair) and are regularly topped up with lawyers: the current cohort of MPs from the general election in 2017 has an 11% lawyer intake, the second largest group after business (14%) outside politics. Those MPs are well known to us: Geoffrey Cox QC, Chuka Umunna, Dominic Grieve QC, Lucy Frazer QC, Keir Starmer QC, Helen Grant and so on and on.
But this percentage is down on the steady 15% lawyer-parliamentarians that has been the norm ever since the 1970s.
This may have been a reflection in a drop in the number of barristers in parliament: the percentage of individuals from the bar has dropped from 10% (in 1979) to around 6% (in 2015); the percentage of solicitors has increased in the same period from 4.7% to 8.1%.
But may be he was onto something.
If you look at the UK’s most recent party, the Brexit Party, launched in April 2019 with 29 MEPs sitting in Brussels following the European elections in May, there is only one lawyer among them: Andrew England Kerr, who runs a firm of solicitors in Birmingham.
There were a couple of former UKIP MEPs who studied law, David Coburn (Leeds University) and Margot Parker (De Montfort University), but they are no longer MEPs. The Brexit Party does have another lawyer in the Welsh Assembly, Mark Reckless, who was called to the bar in 2007, and subsequently spent some time at Herbert Smith, now Herbert Smith Freehills. (Reckless recently made headlines when he took on Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court justice, during the final Reith lecture for the top court’s role in the Article 50 case.)
But up until the Brexit Party, the lawyer-politician thing was not that party-specific. Within the two major parties, the numbers from the legal profession are fairly even (though the Lib Dems do appear to be rather lawyer-heavy): In 2015, (so not our current parliament) figures show that of the Tories, 17% were from the legal profession, for Labour it was 12% (the Lib Dems 25%).
Perhaps the low numbers of lawyers among the Brexit Party candidacy signifies a new era of politics: fragmented, single-issue, polarised — and the end of the romance between law and politics.
A solicitor once sacked as an immigration judge for watching porn on his work laptop has landed himself in virtual hot water again — this time by emailing a court clerk unflattering material about his opponent in a live case.
His Honour Judge Gerald, who had been presiding over the fraud case, called the email “an attempt to pervert the course of justice” and “a clear attempt to influence the judge”.
In a written judgment recusing himself from the case (in full below), Gerald added that “I, frankly, can think of absolutely no other reason at all why a solicitor, who, of course, is an officer of the court, would write the emails which I have referred to”.
The judge’s decision to take himself off the case, lest he be accused of bias against Hendron, meant that a ten-day trial at Central London County Court had to be adjourned on its first day.
Judgment in full:
Grant’s link was to a story on the RollOnFriday website, which now reports that the furious judge made a wasted costs order of £150,000 against Rexton Law and referred Grant to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Cambridge-educated Grant lost his job as an immigration judge in 2015 after being caught viewing “pornographic material on judicial IT equipment”. Grant argued that his behaviour was brought on by depression, taking an unsuccessful employment tribunal case for unfair dismissal.
Hendron first came to police attention after his boyfriend was found dead of a drug overdose. He was suspended from practice from three years following his conviction, but was not jailed and recently returned to the bar.
He told Legal Cheek: “Though I have sympathy with Mr Grant and wish him well in the SRA investigation and probable disciplinary proceedings, he should have known better”. Grant and Rexton Law have been approached for comment.
Career success shouldn’t come at the sacrifice of being yourself, says City lawyer turned career coach Husnara Begum
Law isn’t a suitable profession for a wheelchair user. Sorry, we can’t offer you a place on our law degree programme because our library doesn’t have wheelchair access. It will be great to get more Indian trainees into our firm because India is the next big thing (for the record I am not Indian!). How will our clients react to working with a disabled lawyer? You don’t look or behave like a typical disabled person. I hope you’re not speeding in that wheelchair. And my all-time favourite: you only got a training contract with a magic circle firm because you’re an Asian female who uses a wheelchair and the first in your family to go to university — are you sure you’re not a lesbian as well? This is just a small sample of the barrage of negative and inappropriate comments I’ve had to put up since starting my journey into the legal profession.
Granted most of these examples date back to the early and mid-1990s. This was before disability discrimination laws officially came into force and when City law firms were dominated by middle aged, middle class, Oxbridge-educated white men. Since then progress has been made across the profession to attract trainees from a broader mix of backgrounds and initiatives such as contextual recruitment are definitely a move in the right direction. But focussing on recruiting trainees from disadvantaged backgrounds doesn’t go far enough. Efforts now need to shift towards retention. I know from my own personal experience of training as a magic circle lawyer that the world I grew up in where 13 of us lived in a three-bedroom terraced house in one of the poorest areas of Luton could not be any further removed from the shiny gleaming offices occupied by City law firms.
I may have had the academic credentials to succeed but when it came to ‘fitting in’ with the other trainees in my intake and more significantly being taken seriously by partners I had yet another mountain to climb. This one was bigger than anything else I had encountered and with no safety harnesses in place I realised that if I didn’t quickly adapt my personal image, the way I interacted with colleagues and clients and absorb myself into middle class hobbies and pass times I would never reach the summit. So, to avoid crashing to the ground I ditched the hand me downs I inherited from my older sisters, treated myself to a Gucci handbag, removed the go-faster stickers from my wheelchair, swotted up on Shakespeare, feigned an interest in rugby (to be honest I still don’t understand the rules), and even bought my first ever CD in classical music.
To be fair I scrubbed up pretty well but couldn’t help thinking that all this came at a hefty cost. I was losing my true cultural identity and it all felt a bit fake. Indeed, when I look back and reflect on my early years of working in the City, the recurring question I kept asking myself is why was the onus on me to change? Why didn’t the lawyers around me learn to adapt instead? Indeed, that is precisely what one black trainee I was speaking to recently asked me when we discussed what new entrants to the profession, who hail from less privileged backgrounds, can do to create positive first impressions. Understandably, that particular trainee’s response was why don’t partners have a go a listening to RnB or hip hop rather than expect me to get excited about Glyndebourne (yes I did have to look that up) or a Midsummer Night’s Dream? And why do most social activities put on for trainees and vacation scheme students involve excessive amounts of alcohol?
So, who should the responsibility lie with? Is it acceptable for partners to expect rough diamonds to arrive at their offices polished or should law firms embrace a culture that celebrates diversity? Personally, I think we should all do our bit. Heightened self-awareness that gets you thinking more carefully about how you are perceived by colleagues and clients irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or disability is an important attribute commonly possessed by high achievers. As is the ability to be more versatile. Indeed, I’m now quite the expert and feel just as confident putting a white male partner ten years my senior at ease when running a media training session as when I discuss the latest make-up trends with my teenage nieces. I also feel proud telling stories about my Bangladeshi heritage and how our cuisine differs to what is typically on offer at an Indian restaurant. And most recently I turned up to an awards dinner wearing a sari and much to my surprise rather than sticking out like a sore thumb I received so many compliments. And the best bit was not having to fork out a fortune on a new cocktail dress.
That said, firms also need to up their game to ensure work is allocated fairly because the exposure a trainee or junior lawyer gains to key clients, partners and top deals will have a huge impact on their career progression. Sadly, very few firms have got this right with work still being unfairly distributed to ‘pet’ trainees/associates. Unconscious bias training maybe a solution in this context, but this is yet another thorny issue for law firm diversity professionals with many telling me that there is insufficient research available on whether it even works?
Mentoring is widely accepted as a highly personal and effective intervention that can enhance the career development of underrepresented groups and is increasingly being used successfully in the context of gender diversity. But, as well as the cost, offering mentoring to trainees who have been recruited via diversity initiatives may not be as straight forward because firms potentially run the risk of offending such individuals for being ‘singled out’ as needing additional support for not being the ‘right type’. What’s more, aren’t the trainees perfectly within their rights to ask why they should change and not their senior colleagues?
Husnara Begum is a career coach and outplacement specialist with a particular focus on working with final seat trainees and junior associates. She was previously a legal affairs journalist and a solicitor at Linklaters.
A panel of five top City lawyers are sharing their career journeys and tips for securing training contracts ahead of the end of July deadline 
