Legal Week research finds work placements are more important than ever. But there are plenty of other things law students need to stand out in a tough market, explains Neasa MacErlean

Specialists involved in recruiting trainees to law firms are trying to become more honest. "We have all been saying the same thing to students – that we are fantastic," says one manager. The inevitable result, she feels, is that trainees are unprepared for reality. She has seen many students taken aback by daily life when they start the training contract: "It's a shock to the system on the first day."

But Legal Week research for the Law Student Report 2010 suggests that both firms and prospective trainees are now trying to become more open with each other. By spending a few days together – in a placement scheme – the students and the firms can size each other up.

Students value the experience far more highly than meeting firms at a law fair, drinks party or some other event. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the students we surveyed rated placements as 'very' or 'fairly' important, even though only a quarter of those students (3,186 of them in total) had been on a placement.

And when we talked to law firms, we found them enthusing about placements and increasingly underwhelmed by law fairs. "Placements are pretty much the only way that students can differentiate us," says one law firm partner. Another firm is stopping going to law fairs this year because it thinks their time has passed. Nicky Bizzell, resourcing manager of Eversheds, says firms must market themselves more authentically to would-be trainees: "Students don't believe the hype anymore."

The growing importance of placements could have a substantial impact. One firm is just about to introduce a new rule that it will only make offers to students who have completed a placement in its offices. If other firms follow suit then competition for places will clearly become even more intense for placements.

Our statistics confirm that students who want a training contract should concentrate first on getting a placement. People with placement experience are nearly three times as likely to have a training contract as other students, according to our 2010 research. Among the students we surveyed, 70% of those who have a training contract have also been on a placement. And in the current economic climate training contracts are going to be harder to find for at least a year or two, if not longer. Only 24% of the students we surveyed had found themselves a training contract by the time we completed our research stage last month.

Law firms, recruiters and law schools agree that the numbers of training contracts starting this year will be down on 2010. The only question is by how much. We have spoken to firms who are cutting numbers by up to 40%.

prestige-2Although many firms will cut by far less, there will be plenty of students who do not get a contract this year. So what should they do? We detect that the current generation of would-be lawyers is a determined one who will not change career aims lightly. But the advice we got for them from law schools and training partners is rather conflicting.

One law school trainer advises people who leave law school without a place arranged to "keep close to the law" (by, for instance, doing paralegal or pro bono work) and to avoid doing a gap year (as that could show lack of commitment). "Students with tenacity, the right skills and right background will succeed," he says.

But this view is somewhat at odds with that of a recruitment partner in a City firm. "Go and join the diplomatic service," he advises students who end the year without a training contract. "If I had someone with the potential to be a good trainee, giving them a paralegal job would be cruel."

So LPC students might want to be somewhat sceptical about any advice they receive from law schools urging them to stick at the search for a contract even if it takes them another couple of years after the end of the course.

Law schools depend for their livelihood on a flourishing legal sector, and it is in their interests to encourage as many people as possible to stay in the market. But, as a generalisation, students seem to trust and admire the law schools they have chosen. For instance, one student at Kaplan told us: "You get to know everyone and the tutors are friendly and always available." Speaking of BPP, another student told us: "The support they offer us in terms of career advice is excellent." The College of Law is cited as the law school of preference by 51% of students, followed by BPP on 26%.

When they are choosing who to take on, law firms seem to be looking for people with more commercial awareness than in the past. There is also a trend to make prospective students work harder during firm-sponsored LPC courses (with some firms starting to get trainees to take a fourth elective LPC course, even though only three are required). Commercial awareness and a desire to work are qualities that students have in greater numbers than even five years ago.

"Pretty much all [university] students work as well as studying," says Rachel Dobson, operations partner at Pannone. "They are much more clued in to being in a working environment than they were five years ago." The fact that they have debts makes them eager to get on the payroll. "They are coming from a different place now, and are very keen to start earning," she adds.

A perennial issue is whether students can really differentiate between the various firms. Our research gives a cloudy picture on this one. Allen & Overy, for instance, comes top among international firms in all five of the categories that we ask students to rate firms on (prestige, 'best firm for your career', work/life balance, training and gender opportunities). Is that because it really is the best, or because it does the best marketing job? Certainly its score on prestige (25%) is well over double the score it gets on work/life balance (11%) – and this suggests that students are developing a fairly subtle appreciation of law firms. But students should not worry too much about being able to expand on the differences between their prospective employers in job interviews. When we spoke to the training partners of law firms we found them very relaxed about the differentiation issue. "I'd rather they read War and Peace than spend a week reading our website," said one partner.

Looking at firms from the students' point of view, it is clear that work/life balance is becoming a huge issue. Among women, it is the most important attribute they want to see in a law firm, getting 55% of their vote, putting it ahead of salary as an issue. For men, it is the second most important issue, beaten only by pay, and gets 52%. There is clearly a message for law firms here: students want quality of life and more flexibility on hours. This is a difficult one for employers who, especially now, will be looking to crank up profitability – quite possibly by increasing hours billed per head.

One human resources manager responds: "There will be times we need to jump through hoops for our clients. They are paying our wages. But we can have work/life balance at other times."

Although the current generation of students will have particular problems to face – especially finding a training contract – they should not be too down-hearted. Keen to get the best recruits they can, firms research the attitudes of would-be lawyers and they adapt in response. "Trainees are a population which is driving change," says Bizzell of Eversheds. "They are used to interacting with organisations and with each other in a different way… We are going to be going much more online than we were in the past."

Recruitment and training partners of the old school may have been bewildered by social networking sites and may even have been hostile to students who can communicate in that way. Mentioning your fondness for Twitter in a job interview might not always have been a sensible step. Now, a more open-minded generation of training partners is seeing the great advantages of having IT-literate employees. "They are very receptive to new ways of working," says Rachel Dobson of Pannone.

This is, undoubtedly, a difficult year to be trying to enter the law. And if the economic outlook stays as it is, today's trainees will have to fight hard when they qualify as well. "For every newly-qualified post, 100 very strong CVs land on the partners' desks," says Dan Smith, director at Noble Legal recruitment consultants.

But it is highly unlikely that the market for legal services will stay as it is. And, if the new generation gets its way on work/life balance, maybe we will gradually move to a situation where more people work as lawyers but many do fewer hours.

The Law Student Report 2010, carried out by Legal Week Intelligence, is the most comprehensive research project of its type, based on a survey of 3,186 students covering their attitudes to law firms and schools, their career aspirations and their approach to seeking a training contract.