Sometimes it can feel that all the attention of the legal world and the legal careers services is focussed on the biggest firms, and particularly the London firms or the biggest firms in the other major cities.
However, there are many regional firms away from the major cities that offer great opportunities for trainee solicitors. A good example of this is Lanyon Bowdler in Shropshire which won the Lawcareers.net’s trainee solicitor award for “Best Recruiter – Small Firm” in 2009 for a second time. LB takes on two trainees a year who spend time in four different departments within the firm during their training contracts.
One of their trainees wrote a blog post about life as a trainee at LB which makes for interesting reading and gives a good insight into what its like to work in a more provincial firm. To read the blog post click here: Life as a Trainee Solicitor
Lanyone Bowdler – life of a TS – regional firm in Shropshire – recent blog entry
Lanyon Bowdler have four trainees training with the firm at any one time, with two trainees joining us in September each year. Trainees usually spend 6 months in a department so that they have experience of four areas of work. We have filled our positions for our 2010 contracts and applications for September 2011 are now closed. We will contact all applicants who have applied for a training contract with us for September 2011, (whether they are successful at getting an interview or not), by the end of March 2010.
Applications for September 2012 will need to be submitted by the end of January 2011.
Unless you have been living under a rock in recent times, it will come as no surprise to you that there are definite risks and challenges for those who decide to pursue a legal career.
These have reached such a level that the Law Society’s education and training committee has introduced an information campaign to try and address the gap between the numbers of training contracts being offered by law firms each year and the number of people graduating from the LPC.
Figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority make for difficult reading for anyone seeking a training contract in the current climate. The figures indicate that 9101 students started the LPC in 2009. In the same year the number of training contracts being offered by firms dropped by 32% to 4320 from 6321 in 2008.
The Law Society is currently considering what action it might be able to take to ease this situation. One idea being floated is that they provide support or incentives to encourage law firms to provide more training contracts. Additionally, they are considering whether they might be able to introduce ways to qualify without having to undertake a training contract.
My view is that the more information out there highlighting the risks of pursuing a legal career can only be a good thing. However, I think this information needs to be clear and perhaps broken down more so as to address where the greater risk lies. For example, I do not see a huge amount of risk in doing a law degree as this is a very valuable qualification to have even if its owner doesn’t go on to pursue a legal career.
The risk, as I see it, is more associated around the LPC which can be expensive and is fairly limited to training students solely for legal practice. If finding a way into legal practice then proves hard, there will be many who become victim of this risk.
Perhaps it is time to re-visit the notion of students having to have secured a training contract before they are permitted to do the LPC. I know this has its critics but surely we need to start a fresh debate on this given there are less than half the number of training contracts available at the moment than there are candidates looking for them.
In a recent interview Lynn Johansen, graduate recruitment partner at Clifford Chance, talks about the qualities needed by prospective applicants to Clifford Chance (which are applicable to most City firms), the application process and the training given to young lawyers.
She touches on what sort of work trainees can expect to do after qualification, as well as discussing the hours their lawyers can be expected to work and the opportunities for working overseas. Finally, she explains the Clifford Chance Pro Bono programme which is a major feature of the Clifford Chance ethos.
The podcast and transcript appear on the College of Law website. Click here to listen/view.
Spending some time researching which are the right law firms to apply to for your training contract is an important, and often glossed over, part of achieving training contract success.
Our latest article setting out the main types of firms that offer training contracts can be found here: Law Firms & Training Contracts.
