Scheme is designed to encourage sixth-formers from “disadvantaged backgrounds” to have a punt at legal profession

Applications opened today for the fourth year of a global legal practice scheme aimed at encouraging state school sixth-formers from “disadvantaged backgrounds” to apply for Russell Group law degrees.

Launched in 2012 by international franchised law firm CMS, the bursary programme offers successful applicants £2,500 for each year of their undergraduate law degrees.

This year, the practice — which bills itself as employing some 3,000 “law and tax experts” in 59 international offices — is offering five bursaries, including, for the first time, one in Scotland.

CMS bursary winners — as well as finalists — will also receive mentoring from a CMS lawyer throughout their UCAS application processes.

The latest instalment of the CMS scheme comes against the backdrop of a move in March by transatlantic firm Hogan Lovells also to assist so-called under-privileged students win and finance top university law school places.

According to CMS, 11 students have won bursaries since the scheme launched, while a total of 22 have received mentoring from partners and other CMS fee-earners. As a result, says the firm, students have been offered places on law degrees at a range of top universities, including Edinburgh, Durham, Bristol, the London School of Economics, Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield.

In addition, the firm said that 17 students have had work experience at CMS, with another dozen to be offered intern places this year.

CMS senior partner Penelope Warne commented on the launch of this year’s scheme:

“It is important that we remove social barriers to a career in the law. The CMS bursary scheme reinforces our commitment to making the legal profession more accessible, regardless of background.”

While senior associate Sarah Hyde, who leads the initiative, added:

“The mentoring and support offered to students is a crucial aspect of the scheme — many of our students have never stepped foot inside a corporate or legal environment, and don’t have access to anyone at home who can share direct experience of university applications and preparing for professional interviews.”

Bursary applicants must have been at schools where more than 25% of pupils are eligible for free school meals or are themselves eligible for free school meals. They must also be in the first generation in their families to attend university.

Grades are also important. Applicants are expected to achieve ABB or equivalent at A-level, or AABB or ABBBB at Higher, or 320 points in five Scottish Highers.

The firm said it will select candidates for interview through an essay competition on a topic relevant to legal and ethical issues. The deadline for submitting essays is 1 July in Scotland and 22 July in the rest of the UK, with the winners being announced in September.

Previously

Hogan Lovells to sponsor undergrads in tie-up with LSE, York and Durham [Legal Cheek]

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International lawyers group launches hi-tech tool in fight against tyrants and political fanatics

Forget Tinder, Snapchat and Periscope — apps have just got serious, with the release of a tool that documents and reports human rights abuses.

The International Bar Association (IBA) — more usually associated with extravagant law firm parties at which top-flight partners get squiffy — yesterday released the eyeWitness to Atrocities app.

It may sound like the latest bloodthirsty gaming gig, but senior IBA officials assure that the revolutionary tool will be invaluable in assisting with the secure and verifiable registering of crucial evidence.

According to the organisation’s executive director, Mark Ellis, the app “will be a transformational tool in the fight for human rights, providing a solution to the evidentiary challenges surrounding mobile phone footage”.

Ellis explained:

“Until now, it has been extremely difficult to verify the authenticity of these images and to protect the safety of those brave enough to record them.”

The London-based IBA — which has financed the app’s development to the tune of $1 million (£650,000) — says the device will automatically collect and embed into a video file GPS co-ordinates, date and time, device sensor data, and surrounding objects such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi networks.

Users will have the option of adding any additional identifying information regarding images. That metadata will verify footage and put it into context. The app will encrypt and securely store images and data, as well as embed a process that verifies the footage has not been edited or digitally manipulated.

Users can then submit the information directly from the app to a database maintained by the eyeWitness organisation. Once the video is transmitted, it is stored in a secure virtual evidence locker safeguarding the original, encrypted footage for future investigations and legal proceedings.

According to the IBA, submitted footage is only accessible to legal experts that will analyse it and identify the appropriate authorities, including international, regional or national courts, to pursue relevant cases.

The post Now there’s a mobile app that monitors and records human rights abuses appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Lauren Riley turns to crowd funding to boost her client-communications app

One of the lawyers Alan Sugar sacked from last season’s Apprentice television hit is bidding for crowd funding to boost her business brainchild in a pitch that competes directly with the Law Society.

Lauren Riley — who attributed her failure on the BBC programme last November to Sugar’s supposed hatred of lawyers — yesterday opened the door to the public in a bid to raise £150,000 for The Link App.

Very pleased to announce my business @thelinkappHQ is offering equity #crowdfunding launched today! https://t.co/vF7hADwKK2

— Lauren Riley (@MissLaurenRiley) June 8, 2015

The family law specialist at St Albans solicitors’ firm Labrums has been developing the app for some time. She describes it as “ultimate tool for busy law firms looking to thrive in an increasingly competitive market, improve customer service, save time and money and increase productivity”.

Essentially, her business model involves law firms licensing the app and supplying it to their clients. According to Riley, the tool keeps “clients in the loop without the need for back and forth communication, freeing up valuable solicitor’s time”.

In announcing the Crowd2Fund cash call yesterday, Riley estimated that the app could increase law firm profits by a staggering £84,000 annually per fee earner through its enhanced communications and time saving functions.

Funds raised will be used for further development and marketing, and the deal will offer investors a share of equity.

The app’s developers maintained that it is suited to various categories of legal work; however, in the past, Riley has said The Link App is especially well suited to client communications in residential conveyancing matters.

That will put Riley in direct competition with her own professional body, the Law Society, which in the last few days has launched its own all-singing, all-dancing on-line conveyancing tool called Veyo.

But plucky Riley relishes the David-and-Goliath fight, telling Legal Cheek that she does not actually view the Chancery Lane system as a rival.

“It [Veyo] isn’t an app based technology and The Link App answers that demand of our clients. Conveyancing is a sector which The Link App particularly benefits, but we cater to all private client sectors.”

Previously

Exclusive interview: sacked BBC Apprentice solicitor on her journey from self-funded LPC student to solicitor-entrepreneur [Legal Cheek]

The post Sacked Apprentice lawyer wants you to fund her business appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Latest magic circle player to update pay gives newly-qualified solicitors a big fat nothing

First-year trainee solicitors at Anglo-German law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have been chucked a miserly 1% pay rise while newly qualified lawyers will get no increase at all.

The firm was today the latest to announce a pay update in the City and leaves Freshfields junior lawyers trailing key magic circle competitors.

Trainees and junior associates might also be slightly bemused, as their bosses are some of the best-remunerated lawyers in the world. Last year, average equity partner drawings at the firm scraped the £1.5 million mark.

Freshfields officials this afternoon confirmed a report on law firm partner chat board Roll on Friday that first-year trainees would see their annual pay rise to £41,000.

The firm currently takes on 80 trainees annually, and the move will put starters level with those at transatlantic player Hogan Lovells and fellow magic circle firm Slaughter and May.

However, they will trail by £1,000 counterparts at magic circle firms Clifford Chance and Linklaters.

Newly-qualified solicitors at Freshfields have been left even more disappointed. Starting pay will remain on £67,500. That leaves them trailing Linklaters by £1,000, while Hogan Lovells, Linklaters and Clifford Chance are all £2,500 ahead.

Allen & Overy remains the only magic circle practice to keep its junior lawyers waiting for a salary update.

It is understood that Freshfields has not imposed a blanket freeze on junior lawyer salaries above the newly-qualified level and that increases are still possible within various boundaries.

Previously

Clifford Chance leaps to joint top of junior lawyer pay league table [Legal Cheek]

The post Freshfields chucks £500 pay rise at trainees as top partners take home nearly £1.5m appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Research from uber-regulator exposes huge lack in access to justice for ordinary public

Half of British punters will have a legal problem in the next three years, but only a fifth of them will instruct lawyers to advise, according to research released yesterday.

The figures — from the Legal Service Board’s annual report — will provide fodder to legal aid campaigners as they illustrate how dramatically potential individual private clients are being removed from the justice system.

And it is not just individuals that are struggling for whatever reason to pick up the ‘phone to ring a law firm. The board’s analysts also anticipate that in the next 12 months nearly 40% of small businesses in the UK will have a legal problem, but fewer than one in five will seek advice from a regulated lawyer.

The LSB is the umbrella regulator of the legal profession in England and Wales, overseeing the work of front-line watchdogs, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and CILEx Regulation.

In the board’s latest annual report, officials bemoan the unmet legal need highlighted in the research, while subtly acknowledging there is little they can do about it in practice.

Reads the report:

“Regulators must do all they can to help consumers navigate the changing landscape as they try to solve their legal problems, especially against the background of the reforms to legal aid, where there is less money for legal aid and it funds fewer things, and the outlook for the public spending environment over the next few years.”

Read the report in full below:

LSB

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But flash New Yorkers still £10k off lead pace set by US rivals in Square Mile

New Yorkers White & Case have put City of London rivals in the shade in this year’s junior lawyer pay round battle — boosting newly-qualified solicitor salaries by a whopping 20% to £90,000.

That demonstration of Yankee muscle takes W&C £18,000 clear of the closest English competitors, Clifford Chance, Hogan Lovells and Slaughter and May.

Inflation rates and the RPI index clearly mean nothing to the Uncle Sam firms over here. In an illustration of just how far ahead in the City pay game the US firms are, White & Case’s rush of generosity takes the firm past only one of its compatriots in the Square Mile.

The firm is now paying greenhorn lawyers £2,000 more than the London office of fellow Manhattanites, Shearman & Sterling. But White & Case is still £5,000 behind the next firm on the Legal Cheek most list, Cleary Gottlieb, which is also headquartered in the Big Apple.

And W&C still trails by £10,000 the top triumvirate of Washington DC-based Akin Gump, and two more New Yorkers, Davis Polk and Sullivan & Cromwell.

White & Case trainees will also benefit from a pay upgrade, but one that is much more modest. First-year trainee pay increases by £1,000 to £44,000.

That keeps the firm ahead of English rivals in remunerating its 30 annual trainees. But it is still a grand behind Shearman & Sterling and £5k off the lead pace set by Davis Polk and Sullivan & Cromwell.

Previously:

Freshfields chucks £500 pay rise at trainees as top partners take home nearly £1.5m [Legal Cheek]

The post White & Case ups London NQ pay by 20% to a whopping £90k appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Do you take illegal — or even “legal” — drugs?

As the government prepares to criminalise a host of hitherto perfectly respectable products via its controversial Psychoactive Substances Bill — which was yesterday debated in the House of Lords — the awkward relationship between the law and drugs is once again being thrust into the media spotlight.

It is lawyers, of course, who will be responsible for processing the potentially vast numbers of defendants accused of partaking in soon-to-be outlawed “legal highs”.

And as thousands of young people are handed criminal records on the basis of their love affair with cheap air fresheners, expect the mean and nasty legal profession to come under scrutiny.

It’s no secret that some lawyers indulge in drugs from time to time, with reports of their elicit habits occasionally surfacing in the press. Cocaine and marijuana are, for example, said by The Guardian to be “rife” at the criminal bar, while Legal Business magazine has written of “cocaine clubs” in the basement of a leading law firm and a drug-delivery service used by lawyers at all the major London firms.

But to date no publication has ever attempted to delve deeper into these rumours. Our survey below does just that. It takes two minutes to complete and is totally anonymous. Whether you are a law student, a high-flying City partner or a top QC, we’d be grateful for your responses. The results will be published later this week.

Create your own user feedback survey

If you are reading this article on a phone, you can take the anonymous Legal Cheek drugs in the legal profession survey here.

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The Ministry of Justice has announced a second round of cuts to crime specialist law firms, taking total to more than 17% in last year

A government minister yesterday effectively spoke directly to anyone still thinking of becoming a legal aid solicitor. His message can be boiled down to a simple utterance: don’t.

In a written statement to parliament, the legal aid minister at the Ministry of Justice, Shailesh Vara, told MPs that the now true-blue government would press ahead with a second round of fee cuts for criminal law legal aid solicitors’ firms.

The second slice of 8.75% — scheduled to kick in from the beginning of next month – comes on top of the same percentage cut imposed last year by the previous coalition government.

Anyone standing on the sidelines could easily take the view that ministers for some reason just don’t like the solicitor branch of the profession — or at least those solicitors that don’t do advocacy work.

Vara told MPs that the MoJ was backing away — at least temporarily — from proposed cuts to advocacy fees. That move will mostly benefit criminal law specialist barristers, and can arguably be viewed as a ministry bid to head off rumblings of criminal bar strike action.

We are particularly keen to ensure we retain a vibrant independent bar,” Vara said, “and protect the high standard of advocacy which is a hallmark of our justice system.

Therefore, in the last 12 months legal aid solicitors’ firms have borne the brunt of two successive governments’ slash-and-burn efforts, making a total of 17.5% in cuts.

In his statement to MPs, Vara said:

Before reaching this conclusion, we examined changes to our forecast legal aid expenditure, changes to the existing market, provider withdrawal rates and reasons, contract extension acceptance and early information from the duty provider contract tender. This reassured us that legal aid reforms so far have not had any substantial negative impact on the sustainability of the service.

Funnily enough, legal aid solicitors on the ground did not agree. Jonathan Black, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and a founding partner of BSB Solicitors, told the Law Gazette that the government’s fee cuts amounted to sailing “straight into an iceberg leading to the sinking of a profession”.

Black continued:

We understand that the advocates fee cut has not been affected and that [the minister] was persuaded that savings could be made elsewhere. This was to maintain the quality of advocacy services. It is disappointing that he would not consider the same argument in respect of litigation services, the provision of which will be further impacted as a result of this cut.

The post Yesterday the government made it pointless to qualify into a legal aid law firm appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Telly talking-head Sophia Cannon squares up against Doughty Street’s Tunde Okewale — with a phone hacking lawyer thrown into mix

Two high-profile barristers are locked in an almighty scrap over whether one of them was assaulted on a London bus — and whether the other has sent a stream of social media abuse.

Sophia Cannon — a non-practising barrister, who regularly crops up on television newspaper reviews and other broadcast gigs — has formally complained to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) over the alleged behaviour of Tunde Okewale.

Cannon has also instructed leading media law solicitor Mark Lewis — of phone hacking fame — in what she has told Legal Cheek are potential harassment and defamation proceedings against the Doughty Street criminal law specialist.

The catfight stems from an incident last April when Cannon alleged a young man punched her in the ribs on a crowded double-decker bus in Brixton, south London. Cannon pursued the man upstairs to challenge and photograph him, and the resulting story received wide press coverage.

Inspector Knacker launched a manhunt after Cannon reported the incident to the police, and the suspect, Karl Palmer, voluntarily came forward.

Late last week, the London Evening Standard reported that the Metropolitan Police had discontinued the investigation into Palmer’s involvement on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Legal Cheek has subsequently learnt that in the immediate aftermath of the initial press coverage, Palmer was referred by a youth worker and fitness trainer to Okewale. The barrister in turn referred him to London law firm Stokoe Partnership.

Cannon claims that in the wake of last week’s Evening Standard report that the investigation had been dropped, she was subjected to a stream of social media abuse. And she is understood to have pointed the finger at Okewale as allegedly generating some of it.

Cannon — who formerly practised at the now defunct Tooks Court Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC — also maintains that the police mistakenly closed the investigation before interviewing her.

The row pits two flamboyant barristers against each other. Cannon lists a string of talking-head credits, including appearances on ITV’s This Morning, the Alan Titchmarsh Show, the BBC News Channel, Sky News and This Day Live for Arise TV. In addition, the barrister — who gave up legal practice eight years ago — has participated in BBC Television’s consumer rights programme, Don’t get done, get Dom.

In the other corner, Okewale was last November named by style bible GQ magazine as one of the “coolest” men in Britain. The sharp-suited 30-year-old is also one of the most keenly backed lawyers on Instagram, attracting more than 5,200 followers.

In a formal statement, Cannon told Legal Cheek this week:

I confirm that I have instructed solicitors to advise me about legal and regulatory proceedings. It would not be appropriate to comment further.

Meanwhile, her solicitor, Mark Lewis, a partner at London law firm Seddons, said only:

My client is complying with the relevant pre-action protocols

For his part, Okewale adamantly denies harassing or defaming Cannon.

Okewale told Legal Cheek that his only involvement has been to publish on social media the London Evening Standard report that the police had dropped the investigation into the alleged assault. He also said he welcomed any BSB investigation to clear the air.

And for his part, Knacker of The Yard seems clear. In a statement to Legal Cheek, a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said:

Following an investigation by Roads and Transport Policing Command, the case was discontinued with no further action on Thursday, 14 May. The case has not since been re-opened. No arrests made as part of the investigation. A 17-year-old man was interviewed under caution as part of the initial investigation. The case has since been discontinued with no further action due to insufficient evidence.

The post Media luvvie barristers in cat fight over alleged assault on London bus appeared first on Legal Cheek.

“You will be charged for us providing you this opportunity”

A law firm based in the same Canary Wharf skyscraper as HSBC and JP Morgan is asking students to pay them to do work experience.

Kawa Guimaraes & Associates, which specialises in employment law and clinical negligence, has an ad on the jobs site Indeed punting its “Chargeable Assessed Placement” to desperate wannabe lawyers.

The “unique program [sic] that offers you an opportunity to see how a law firm in the heart of London operates” is, says the ad, “a chargeable assessed placement”. That means, explains the copy, “you will be charged for us providing you this opportunity and assessing you”.

However, the firm does not disclose just how much hard-pressed interns will be expected to cough up for the privilege.

The ad also claims that the “reference letter” received by students “can improve immensely your future chances of employment including Training Contract [sic]”.

This morning Legal Cheek contacted Kawa Guimaraes & Associates — whose motto is “Protecting the Vulnerable” — and spoke to senior partner Dr Mehedi Rahim. He told us that it also has unpaid “voluntary positions” where candidates are permitted to do work experience without being charged.

Rahim added:

If people are struggling and need a good reference that is assessed, they will be charged. It is hard to get a good reference. There is no obligation to pay.

The post Canary Wharf law firm asks students to pay to do work experience appeared first on Legal Cheek.

And it’s not just a spliff round the barbecue — nearly 80% of users are keen on class-A gear

More than a quarter of practising lawyers are taking recreational drugs, an exclusive Legal Cheek survey of the legal profession and law students has revealed.

And a startling 22% of barristers that take drugs have indulged while at their chambers’ desk or in the sets’ lavatories.

The exclusive survey also highlighted strong support for the complete decriminalisation of all drugs, as legal profession opinion flies in the face of recent government moves to ban a range of so-called legal highs.

Some 54% of lawyers said drugs should be made legal, indicating that many of those in the front line of the “war on drugs” — either prosecuting or defending dealers and users — reckon the battle is lost.

Not only are 27% of lawyers currently using drugs, the survey shows they have a taste for the hard stuff.

Of those currently taking drugs, almost all at least occasionally indulge in class-A. Indeed, 89% said they take cocaine or crack, albeit with only 9% doing the latter.

Another 77% of lawyers currently taking drugs said they were keen on Ecstasy/MDMA, while 30% exhibit a retro fondness for the psychedelics of LSD.

But marijuana is the most popular drug for lawyers. Of those currently taking drugs, 93% said they enjoyed a spliff.

Slightly more than 40% go for ketamine, while nearly the same percentage opts for magic mushrooms.

Strikingly, four lawyers said they were currently at least occasionally enjoying the Train Spotting delights of heroin.

And while more than one lawyer in four is currently taking drugs, overall use is much higher. Nearly 60% of lawyers said they had at some stage in the lives taken illegal drugs.

Perhaps because their remuneration packages are far weightier, those solicitors practising corporate-commercial law are more likely to take drugs than their counterparts slaving away at general practices in the nation’s high streets.

The survey showed that 56% of those solicitors currently taking drugs practise at commercial law firms, while only 36% were at general practices.

Meanwhile at the bar, it was the criminal practitioners leading the way. More than 60% of barristers currently taking drugs practised in that field, while 22% were at common law sets and 17% were at commercial chambers.

Solicitors were not as keen as barristers on the partaking of illegal substances at work. Only 17% said they had indulged in their law firm offices.

Legal Cheek’s overall survey also included law student feedback, of which there will be more details this week. However, surprisingly, while law students are predictably keener on gear than practising lawyers, they aren’t that much more stoned.

In any event, the overall figures will trigger some dismay in Whitehall, coming on the heels of the government’s recently announced intention to put before parliament the Psychoactive Substances Bill.

According to the Home Office, that proposed legislation would “prohibit and disrupt the production, distribution, sale and supply of new psychoactive substances in the UK”. In other words, it is designed to crack down on what ministers see as an increasing rage for “legal highs”.

If enacted, the law would ban the sale of nitrous oxide — more commonly known as “hippy crack” or “laughing gas” — for human use, and a range of other substances.

Announcing the proposed crack down, the minister of state for policing, crime, criminal justice and victims (try saying that when you’re stoned), Mike Penning, said:

The landmark bill will fundamentally change the way we tackle new psychoactive substances — and put an end to the game of cat and mouse in which new drugs appear on the market more quickly than government can identify and ban them.

The current professional implications for lawyers caught with a line of Uncle Charles up their noses or with a few spliffs in their desk drawers remain vague. According to LawCare — a charity devoted to dealing with mental health issues and addictions in the legal profession — the regulators take a case-by-case approach.

For example, LawCare says that the Solicitors Regulation Authority maintains that “even a minor drugs conviction is likely to be considered a breach of rule 1.06 which states ‘you must not behave in a way that is likely to diminish the trust the public places in you or the profession’”.

But that is not necessarily game-over on the career front.

“You may appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal,” explains LawCare, before continuing “that a striking off would not be automatic, and the penalty would largely depend on the circumstances.”

Likewise, barristers convicted of a drugs offence, or those reported to the professional regulator for abusing drugs, could get a tap on the shoulder. But as LawCare points out, “the Bar Standards Board would consider the circumstances and disciplinary action might follow”.

More than 800 responses were submitted to the Legal Cheek survey last week.

The post Exclusive Legal Cheek survey: 27% of lawyers take recreational drugs appeared first on Legal Cheek.

Unofficial “poshness test” which champions “talent” keeps riff-raff out of legal profession

Graduate recruitment policies in place at most top law firms massively favour wealthy wannabe students, a report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has claimed.

Basing its findings around the rather limited socio-economic diversity data provided by a selection of 15 elite London law firms, the study highlights the fairly well-known fact that about 40% of trainee solicitors were privately educated. The equivalent figure for the general population is 7%.

The researchers — who were led by Royal Holloway’s Dr Louise Ashley — go on to conclude that this is basically because these firms have a preference for posh kids, which is compounded by a host of factors including lazy Russell Group-dominated recruitment, notions of “talent” that favour public school-educated smoothies and a reluctance to fund more sophisticated hiring practices.

The firms mentioned in the report — which also includes findings taken from the worlds of accountancy and finance — are Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Clyde & Co, CMS Cameron McKenna, DLA Piper, Eversheds, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, King & Wood Mallesons, Linklaters, Norton Rose Fulbright, Pinsent Masons and Slaughter and May.

However, as the table below illustrates, only six of these disclosed socioeconomic diversity stats to the researchers. They were A&0, CC, CMS, HSF, Links and S&M.

The report also included a series of anonymous interviews with lawyers at some of these elite firms. There were some eye-catching quotes, including this one:

My kids go to a private school, they’re very articulate, they’re very confident, they’ve got me and their mum who work professionally and the people they meet are professionals and as they’ve come through the system and they come to apply for jobs, if they want to be lawyers . . . they’ve got ten steps ahead . . they know people whose name they can drop into conversation, the environment they’ve been brought up in so much more lends itself to the criteria that firms are looking for.

With 21% of 2013 trainees at the top 30 UK law firms attending Oxbridge and 58% other Russell Group universities, the report is particularly critical of the legal profession’s narrow graduate recruitment model. This leads to bias, it concludes, stating:

In sum, students at Russell Group universities are on average more likely to have enjoyed educational and economic advantages compared to many students educated elsewhere. These advantages are further reinforced in the recruitment and selection process. In contrast, students educated elsewhere and/or who are from less privileged backgrounds may be disadvantaged because their application. is not actively invited by elite firms and if they do apply, they do not have similar access to coaching and support which might aid their success.

There was also criticism of law firms’ penchant for non-educational attributes such as “the capacity to present a ‘polished’ appearance”, and “the ability to display strong communication and debating skills and act in a confident manner at interview.”

Related to this was the unease expressed by the report at law firms’ “current definitions of talent” — which it was argued could “be closely mapped on to socioeconomic status, including middle-class norms and behaviours”.

On the positive side, the report reserved praise for the contextualised recruitment model — where socioeconomic data is used to contextualise academic performance at school — recently launched by Hogan Lovells, Herbert Smith Freehills, Baker & McKenzie and Ashurst. It also gave the thumbs up to legal apprenticeship programmes of the type being piloted by Mayer Brown.

Social Mobility Commission chairman Alan Milburn, the Labour former MP and minister, said private school kid-dominated law firms were “denying themselves talent, stymying young people’s social mobility and fuelling the social divide that bedevils Britain.” He went on:

Elite firms seem to require applicants to pass a ‘poshness test’ to gain entry. Inevitably that ends up excluding youngsters who have the right sort of grades and abilities but whose parents do not have the right sort of bank balances.

Read the full report here.

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Legal Cheek‘s Alex Aldridge chats to project mastermind Danielle White about a new way into the City that could change everything

Earlier this month Mayer Brown gave the legal world a jolt as it became the first global elite law firm to launch an alternative route to qualification as a solicitor.

Its new “articled apprenticeship” — for which applications close on Friday — will see Mayer Brown take on a future solicitor before they do their law degree, and then employ them through six years of part-time LLB and Legal Practice Course (LPC) study until they qualify.

Crucially the chosen one will get the same money as trainees after completion of the apprenticeship — £37,500-£42,300 a year — and have an equal chance of bagging a newly qualified solicitor role.

The programme, which is being run with the University of Law, is open to both school leavers and career changers, even if they have a previous degree.

Doubtless it’s a great move for diversity, but it will be “no easy option”, explains the firm’s UK graduate recruitment boss Danielle White (pictured above). In the podcast below she tells Legal Cheek publisher Alex Aldridge that the firm is looking for a candidate who has the stamina to juggle work and study, and the brains to mix it with the best — as Aldridge demands to know whether this could be the beginning of the end for the training contract.

White also shares some insider tips on how to nail the apprenticeship application — which can be made here — and accompanying phone interview.

About Legal Cheek Careers posts.

Previously:

Mayer Brown and ULaw combine to offer earn-while-you-learn law degree and LPC that bypasses training contract [Legal Cheek]

The post Podcast: Will Mayer Brown’s new earn-while-you-learn programme kill the training contract? appeared first on Legal Cheek.

David Cameron’s 800th anniversary message from windswept Surrey car park wins little more than derision

Britain’s prime minister — or at least one of his keyboard flunkies — has had a busy time on social media earlier today owing to an 800-year-old document that many in the legal profession reckon his government is doing its best to bury.

David Cameron’s UK Prime Minister Twitter account has been buzzing with extracts from his speech today commemorating the anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta in a field in what is now Surrey.

Twitter being Twitter, those extracts range from the banal, to the bleeding obvious, to arguably the outright ironic.

Cameron kicked off with a video link for those that find the twice-weekly broadcast sessions of Prime Minister’s Questions insufficient. Here’s Dave in what looks like a windswept car park.

PM: I'm here in Runnymede on the banks of the Thames. 800 years ago on this spot, King John sealed the #MagnaCarta. https://t.co/t2NUYt1xA3

— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) June 15, 2015

Rather predictably, not all of Cameron’s fellow subjects on social media were keen to soak up the PM’s Runnymede impressions. Here’s one response to the video.

@Number10gov @BBCSurrey 800 years later, a spam-faced, dissembling ex-PR twat is there!

— Brendan (@Brendan_Surrey) June 15, 2015

Responses on Cameron’s personal Twitter account were also robust.

@David_Cameron Classic Tory bollocks. Celebrate a feudal document about rights, and then rip up all the progress since. #magnacarta

— JamieJones77 (@JamieJones77) June 15, 2015

Then there was this reference to Cameron’s now renowned inability to translate the words Magna Carta when put on the spot by US chat show king David Letterman.

@David_Cameron did David Letterman tell you that?

— Seán Kivs (@Sean_Kivs) June 15, 2015

Legal profession social media junkies also took a bite of the Magna Carta cherry. Leading the charge was commentator David Allen Green from his Jack of Kent account.

Magna Carta has all the legal and political force of an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.

— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) June 15, 2015

Green went on to trash Magna Carta romance in a piece on his blog.

For a supposedly fundamental document, wrote the lawyer, there is little to see of its ‘fundamental’ effect: few, if any, cases have ever turned on it. Although it is often invoked in passing, it lacks the live and real effect of an actual constitutional instrument.

He continued:

Compare this impotence with the entitlements in the US Bill of Rights, which make actual differences to US citizens every day.

Meanwhile, researchers at Thomson Reuters used the anniversary to point out that 800 years after King John begrudgingly put his seal on Magna Carta, “the right to a fair trial is still being regularly litigated over in the UK and across Europe”.

According to the research, over the last decade, the European Court of Human Rights has made 19 rulings against the UK — and 1,237 against all EU countries — for breaches to the right to a fair trial.

Last year alone, 149 violations of the right to a fair trial were recorded by the European Court of Human Rights against signatory countries to the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Commercial, tax and employment lawyers frequently make arguments based on the right to a fair trial — a concept that was one of the most significant legacies of Magna Carta,” commented Tom Hickman, a barrister at Blackstone Chambers and author of Thomas Reuters’ “Human Rights: Judicial Protection in the UK.”

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Study released today blames phones and tablets for allowing partners to deprive associates of almost all sleep

Depending on your age, they are either the curse of modern existence or its lifeblood — but now smartphones and tablets are being blamed for making lawyers work ever-longer hours.

A study released today into law firm working practices maintains that mobile devices have allowed partnerships to pile even more pressure on hard-pressed junior lawyers. The researchers write:

While advances in technology … permit more flexible working, including allowing men to take a more hands-on approach to childcare, they are widening rather than reducing the gap between those prepared to work additional hours and others who would rather not.

The findings come from the a study titled “Perceptions and Impacts of Working Patterns with in the Legal Profession”, commissioned by the Law Society of Scotland, which represents solicitors in that potentially soon-to-be-independent country.

The Scottish researchers found that a “culture of extensive overtime has become endemic across the profession”.

The report points the finger specifically at “push technology” — user-downloaded services that continually supply information from the Internet — for turning young lawyers into modern pit ponies.

According to the researchers:

Solicitors reported persistently receiving emails out of office hours, along with an expectation, both by clients and their firm or organisation, that they will respond instantly. Feelings of not being able to switch off and being permanently tied to the office were commonplace.

They continued:

Whilst there were advantages discussed in relation to the impact of technology, most individuals of all grades and working patterns highlighted the challenges and negative impacts this had brought to the profession.

But it wasn’t all moaning. Survey respondents acknowledged that various developments — such as video technology and the ability to access files remotely — had created efficiencies and more flexible working patterns. All of which encouraged higher rates of staff retention and a more motivated and productive workforce.

On the socially delicate issue of men taking a more active role in childcare, the researchers found:

Even when part-time working is not required, men with young families appreciate the ability to get home … to spend some time with their children and then, if required, start work again in the evening. New technology allows this flexibility.

Neil Stevenson, the society’s director of representation and support, highlighted examples of best practice in a bid to get the most from technology.

The Law Society man recommended that law firms introduce on-call systems, allowing solicitors to take in turn client telephone calls out of hours. Law firms should also provide “the right equipment” to facilitate home working; manage workloads so that neither full nor part-time staff were overloaded; liaise with part-time staff when organising meetings and training.

Finally, Stevenson aimed high and suggested that law firm partners should set examples by also working flexibly.

Commented Stevenson:

It’s evident that the huge change in technology and access has not always been fully supported by training, support, and guidance on working practices. Feeling constantly on call is now a key cause of stress in the profession, and may not even be what clients or employers really intend.

However, some commentators took the view that lawyers are just going to have to come to terms with being constantly at the beck and call of clients via mobile technology.

“We should not forget that we remain a privileged profession where the average salary is well above the national average,” pointed out Chrissie Lightfoot, legal profession technology guru and author of ‘Tomorrow’s Naked Lawyer’.

All people — clients and workers everywhere in their work and leisure lives — “live in a constant state of ‘on’”, she added, reasoning that technology promulgated “a social human global eco-system”.

Accordingly, Lightfoot said, “if clients expect and demand 24/7/365 service, we ought — as a very minimum — to acknowledge their communication immediately, and artificial intelligence technology can assist with this”. She went on:

Law firms need to get a grip. There is absolutely no reason why we lawyers ought to feel overwhelmed or stressed if the law firm and the individual lawyer use the technology smartly in a new human way, with machines and humans working together. Remember, lawyers are paid to serve the client efficiently and effectively.

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Trainees at Pittsburgh-headquartered practice do better, bagging 4% rise to take them to £38,500

They do things at a slightly more conservative pace in Steel Town, USA. Which is why when the London offices of other US-headquartered firms are chucking money about as though it were going out of style, Reed Smith has awarded its newly qualified English lawyers a pay rise of only slightly more than 1.5%.

To be fair, moving newbie London solicitors at the Pittsburgh-based practice up from £60,000 to £61,000 is more in line with the UK’s current retail price index.

Nonetheless, junior lawyers at the firm — which took over London practice Richards Butler eight years ago — might feel slightly disappointed when comparing their pay rises with the 20% increase flash New Yorkers White & Case handed to their NQs last week.

Trainees at Reed Smith, however, have a bit more to celebrate. The firm announced within the last hour that they have been awarded a 4% rise, taking first-year trainees from £37,000 to £38,500.

The move will catapult the firm several places up the Legal Cheek “Most List” for trainee wedge, putting it on a par with London-based global franchise firm CMS.

Reed Smith recruits 24 trainees a year, and the firm said today that pay for those in their second year will be increased to £40,000.

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The sisters are taking a huge hammering worth thousands of pounds, according to research released yesterday

It pays to be a chap at corporate-commercial law firms, research released today illustrates, providing fodder to the debate over gender discrimination at the top flight of the legal profession.

Boys are paid on average nearly 38% more than girls in the law firm sandpit, according to figures from The Lawyer magazine (registration required).

The publication has released its first-ever legal sector pay survey, and it doesn’t make pleasant reading for the double-X chromosome brigade. The researchers found the average salary for men in private practice was £82,820, while women were on average taking home around £63,500.

That’s a pay gap of £24,000, ladies, so perhaps it’s time to start chaining yourselves to the managing partner’s executive leather chair or throwing yourselves in front of the senior partner’s finest hunting horse.

According to The Lawyer’s researchers, men outpaced women in average pay across all levels of post-qualification experience.

Men in the four-to-six PQE bracket were about 20% better paid than women of equivalent experience. That gap shrank by only 2 points for those in the seven-year-plus PQE group. And the gap went back up to 19% for salaried partners.

According to the magazine, women lawyers could take some comfort from evidence showing they were only marginally more likely to be told to get stuffed than their male counterparts when asking for a pay rise. In last year’s pay round, slightly more than 25% of boys received a big fat nothing, compared with nearly 27% of girls being disappointed.

But the gender gap comes looming back into view for the lucky majority that did get a pay boost. The research shows that slightly more than 47% of women received rises of no more than 5%, compared with 38.5% of the blokes.

But around 16.5% of those in boxer shorts received a 6% to 10% increase, compared with slightly more than 13% of those kitted out in thongs.

The Lawyer research is slightly out of sync with figures from the Law Society. Last year’s private practice earnings review from the body representing solicitors in England & Wales produced a slightly more modest median earnings figure of £80,000 for all solicitors at firms of 81-plus partners.

According to the Chancery Lane figures, London was easily the best place to be an associate with the median earnings figure for all solicitors practising at that level in the capital being £66,500.

Wales came out as the worst spot for those motivated by cash — the median figure for associates practising in the Principality last year was £29,000.

London was predictably the best place to become an equity partner, with median level earnings pegged at £140,000. While Wales again brought up the rear on £45,000, although it was only marginally behind the north-west, which had a median figure of £50,000.

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Segregation attempt triggers social media outrage from the larger branch of legal profession

It’s difficult to know where to start with this treasure trove of entertainment, all bundled into a couple of short lines and some Clipart.

Firstly, the message was probably not constructed by an open-minded and thoroughly modern member of the legal profession. No, whoever produced this gem is not fully up to speed with developments over the last two-plus decades and the growth of solicitor advocacy.

But as Nicholas Diable, a London criminal law solicitor specialising in drink driving cases, points out, sometimes it is very difficult for his side of the profession to like the bar.

When you show up to CC and find these on the desks in the robing room it becomes hard to feel warm about Bar. pic.twitter.com/ZrypMzZdRH

— Nicholas Diable (@Defencebrief) June 16, 2015

Indeed, responses to Diable’s tweet of this photo earlier today suggested that one only need scratch the surface to uncover some fairly passionate inter-professional dislike. For example, here’s the response of Jennie Kreser, a pensions partner at City of London law firm Silverman Sherliker.

@Defencebrief @SistahInLaw with apols to some great barristers I follow on here, some members of the Bar really are arrogant pr**ks

— Jennie Kreser (@pensionlawyeruk) June 16, 2015

But perhaps the most striking howler in this note — left recently in an unidentified county court robing room — is the inexcusable apostrophe cock-up. The barrister or barristers with a phobia about mixing with the underclass known as solicitors clearly struggled with English grammar at school.

@Defencebrief @nearlylegal Dear god. And with an errant apostrophe, as well…

— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) June 16, 2015

Unless, that is, those concerned have a phobia about just one particular solicitor, whom they would like to see banished to the isolated exile of the fourth floor … next to court 9 …

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Professional regulators’ plans described as potentially weakening entry standards by not even requiring GCSEs

Any sixth-formers currently harbouring notions of skipping university and law school to qualify into a City of London law firm via the government’s new apprenticeship scheme, should probably thinking again.

A statement issued several days ago demonstrates that the great and the good of the City legal profession are going to take some convincing before apprenticeships are routinely offered at Square Mile law firms.

In an initial response to suggestions from the solicitors’ regulator that entry to the profession should be broadened through the wider use of apprenticeships, the City of London Law Society has adopted a distinctly cool attitude.

The City society told the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in a response last week that it supported “the concept of apprenticeships as a means of broadening access to the profession”.

But it then issued a significant caveat:

As long as standards are maintained, that is without a dilution of standards, diminution of quality or creation of a two-tier profession.

And it seems City lawyers have serious concerns over quality and standards. In its response, the City law society admonishes the SRA for appearing to include in its proposals changes that would “facilitate entry (onto the apprenticeship scheme) with no academic qualifications at all, not even GCSEs or A-levels …”

The City response concluded ominously, “…we are far from being reassured that standards will be maintained”.

The salvo from the City law society is the latest contribution to an at times confusing situation around legal profession apprenticeships.

In its response, the City big-wigs said their understanding of the SRA proposals was that they were “designed to facilitate the implementation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ Trailbazer Apprenticeship scheme and the new Welsh Apprenticeship scheme for legal practice”.

However, a range of potential routes exists while others are scheduled to come into effect. As Legal Cheek observed last December, “confusion and a lack of transparency bedevil nascent solicitors’ profession apprenticeship schemes”.

Indeed, at the end of last year, a Legal Cheek survey of five high-profile law firms offering apprenticeships uncovered a variety of approaches, as well as multiple levels of pay.

Read the CLLS response in full below:

CLLS Response

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New Yorkers are first off the blocks for the “autumn” newly-qualified retention figures

New York “white shoe” practice Shearman & Sterling has retained all of its London trainee solicitors, the firm announced this morning.

That means the firm — which at the end of last month increased junior lawyer salaries by 6% to £88,000 — will keep 13 new qualifiers when they are handed their practising certificates this September.

A statement from the firm said the NQs will be spread across a range of departments at the Liverpool Street offices. Included will be finance, mergers and acquisitions, tax, anti-trust, project development and finance, asset management, and financial institutions advisory work.

This morning’s announcement represented a considerable improvement on the firm’s recent retention rates. Last year, it held on to 75% of its London qualifiers, which was down from 85% in 2013.

Shearman & Sterling’s London office has been offering training contracts for the last 16 years. Most trainees are given the option to complete one of the four seat rotations overseas.

The NQ salary rate at the firm puts it well ahead of magic circle competition by some £18,000. However, Shearman is still bottom of the table of elite US firms in London, trailing behind White & Case, which recently boosted NQ pay to £90,000.

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