Herbert Smith and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) are among a raft of firms to have announced their September trainee retention rates this month.

Herbert Smith is set to keep on 44 out of 55 of its newly-qualified lawyers (NQs) this autumn, equating to a retention rate of 80%, while BLP will see 95% – 19 out of 20 – of its trainees staying at the firm.

Travers Smith and Hogan Lovells have posted marginally lower trainee retention rates, with Travers set to keep on 13 of its 17 trainees, giving the firm a retention rate of 76%, while Hogan Lovells will see 73% of NQs remain at the firm in September, with 24 out of 33 kept on.

The news marks an increase in trainee retention for Hogan Lovells, after the firm only kept on around 30 of its 54 NQs (57%) in March this year.

BLP managing partner Neville Eisenberg (pictured) said: "The fact that the firm is reasonably busy explains in part why we have a high retention rate. We also intentionally do not recruit huge numbers of trainees, so that we can give our young lawyers the best chance of a job.

"The objective of course is never to lose anyone, but the difficulty that some firms have experienced in recent years is that one recruits four or more years ahead, so with uncertain economic conditions it's difficult to forecast how many NQs you are going to be able to take on."

The news follows the announcements of Allen & Overy (A&O), Macfarlanes and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert's trainee retention rates earlier this month, with the firms posting 72%, 92% and 80% rates respectively.

Legal Week research in March this year revealed that trainee retention rates at the UK's 30 largest law firms had increased across the majority of practices, with the average rate across the group nearly 10% higher than in March 2010.

For more, see Trainee retention at UK's top 30 law firms up 10% against last year.