Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Hogan Lovells and Barclays bank are among a group of ten private practice and in-house legal teams to sponsor a free academic and careers advice service for future solicitors.

Aspiring Solicitors is the creation of former Norton Rose Fulbright corporate associate Chris White, who has now left the firm to work on the initiative full-time. 

Norton Rose is among the founding members of the service. Those firms involved will provide a mixture of mentoring, internships, professional support and work experience opportunities to undergraduates interested in a career in law. Barclays is also offering participants in the programme a number of places on its summer vacation scheme.

The founders will also provide financial support to the organisation, which White has registered as a limited company.

Aspiring Solicitors, which initially launched in September 2013, aims to assist all people with an interest in becoming a lawyer, but has a particular focus on encouraging people from backgrounds under-represented by the profession.

The other founding members are law firms Clyde & Co, Dentons, Wragge & Co and Atwells, as well as legal researcher LexisNexis and trainee secondment company Accutrainee.

The scheme has also received interest from a numbers of other law firms and barristers' chambers, and already operates a network of student ambassadors at 43 universities.

White, a graduate from the University of East Anglia, said he first started helping aspiring solicitors after finding the process of applying to law firms a daunting task as an undergraduate.

"As a first generation law student I discovered how difficult it was for me to get experience in the legal profession, let alone access it," said White. "I had no family contacts or friends in law and had to find my way on my own steam."

Speaking about his decision to leave Norton Rose, White admitted that juggling both roles long-term would have been impossible. "I want to look back at my career and know that I have changed the profession," he said. "I wouldn't have been able to do that as a full-time lawyer."

Asked what his long-term aims for the project are, White said he hoped future leaders of the legal profession would look at and treat prospective lawyers from all backgrounds in the same way.

Norton Rose graduate recruitment partner Duncan Batchelor said: "We are committed to opening doors to the profession and in the last twelve months, we have provided mentoring or work experience to over a hundred young people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. 

"Our work together with Aspiring Solicitors, a brand new and exciting initiative to further open up access to the profession, continues to build on this success."

The scheme's website launches today (27 January) at www.aspiringsolicitors.co.uk