CC, Freshfields, Ashurst looking at system to widen pool of recruits

Disadvantaged students considering a career in law may be given greater access to the profession as several top law firms have joined a working group with the aim of adopting a 'contextual recruitment' scheme.

The system, which is set to be rolled out later this year, could introduce a new element to recruitment across all industries including law, allowing firms to rate candidates against the average performance of their school, potentially widening the pool of recruits considered.

Firms including Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Ashurst have teamed up with diversity recruitment and training company Rare to form a working group looking into the new system, which will also allow firms to take into account economic background and personal circumstances, such as whether they are the first generation of their family to go to university, or whether they have spent time in care. 

If a candidate has two or more factors that may have affected their grades, Rare recommends that graduate recruiters take this into account.

Further suggestions include looking at how the candidate gained work experience, showing the extent of their potential as a 'go getter'. 

Rare has 10 law firms as clients, including Allen & Overy, Herbert Smith Freehills and Hogan Lovells, as well as banks and corporates including Lloyds Bank, Barclays and Google, which will all be able to use the scheme for their recruitment through Rare from 1 September. However, Rare is pushing for all law firms to consider adopting similar contextual recruitment schemes across their entire recruitment process.

Ashurst head of diversity Deborah Dalgleish said: "I think having contextual information in this way is a very important means of identifying potential. While I can see it is a delicate issue to probe, firms need to remain open-minded about how they can be as fair and objective as possible to the greatest number of applicants."

The working group will also consider the introduction of a cross-industry standard for internal monitoring, in the same way as firms currently release diversity statistics on gender and race.

Former Slaughter and May executive partner Graham White, who holds a non-executive directorship at Rare, discussed the proposals with the recruiter's clients last month at a panel discussion.

Rare managing director Raph Mokades (pictured) said: "It's about changing our service to help our clients – to provide this information about our students so that our clients can get the fullest possible picture of them.

"To be clear, it's not an attack on privilege. Someone who got three A*s at A-level is still clearly a strong candidate no matter their background. It's about developing the tools to ensure that talented candidates are not overlooked. From what I've seen, that does sometimes happen completely by accident."

Linklaters graduate recruitment manager Jennifer Cook said the firm may consider contextual recruiting: "At Linklaters we review every application form to take into account individual circumstances. There is no element of online screening.  We consider personal circumstances to ensure we level the playing field as far as possible and make the right decisions. 

"Recruiting a socially diverse workforce has been a focus of ours for several years – we partner with a large number of organisations in this space."

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