Before you can retain them, you have to attract them…

A derivatives partner conceded recently that his department's efforts to retain young lawyers were focused mainly on keeping them on for a mere six months after they had become useful, such was the current demand for talented young lawyers from the investment banks.

It is a stark illustration of the ongoing – and increasingly one-sided – battle firms are fighting in order to retain their recruits long enough for all that investment in their training to pay off.

Last year's Legal Week Intelligence employee satisfaction survey found just half of the 2,500 solicitors polled saw partnership as their ultimate career goal. Students are only marginally more enamoured with the idea of becoming partners. Little wonder then that a significant proportion are turned off by the idea of joining firm-specific courses (see story, page three). While the motives of the law firms in setting up these courses are entirely understandable, the concept itself is counter-intuitive, given so-called 'Generation Y's' aversion to being pigeonholed.

But certain firms have such drawing power they can afford to risk putting off some students in the quest for a better trained, and therefore, more productive workforce. No prizes for guessing which firms these are.

Legal Week Intelligence's student survey reveals that only around a dozen law firms have succeeded in winning brand recognition among students, with the magic circle very much leading the way. This provides yet more evidence of the iron grip the magic circle exerts on the UK legal market and the failure of a wider band of firms to get their name out there. But all is not lost given the presence of a diverse selection of other firms on the list of recognisable names – from London-based international, to national, to regional firms.

For example, given that branding is the number one factor governing a student's choice of law firm, intelligent marketing can play a vital role, as long as it is backed up by substance.

Not surprisingly, students find summer placement schemes by far and away the most useful way of deciding which firm is best suited to them. A greater emphasis on such schemes will certainly favour those larger firms with the resources to run them properly, but it will also add a welcome dose of transparency to the graduate recruitment process – one that is likely to benefit the best-run as opposed to simply the best-known firms.