For years, law firms have been pledging to take recruits from a wider variety of educational backgrounds. So have they delivered on their promises? Justin Cash reports

In the demanding world of commercial law, fresh talent is at a premium. The bar is set high for new trainees; they must have not just the intellect, but also the passion and dedication to impress recruiters. 

But while no one is challenging the need to have such demanding standards, there have been longstanding calls to widen the graduate intake and to look for high-calibre applicants beyond the traditional recruitment ground. As things stand, however, the gene pool of successful candidates still seems to be biased towards those who attend the most distinguished universities in the UK.

Legal Week research into the universities attended by the 2013 trainee intake at the UK's top 30 law firms paints a gloomy picture of social mobility, given the dominance of recruits who attended Oxford, Cambridge or another member of the Russell Group network of 24 leading UK universities (see box below for a definition of the Russell Group). 

Six firms – Clifford Chance (CC), DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Holman Fenwick Willan, Simmons & Simmons and Slaughter and May – declined to provide details of their trainee intake. The remaining 24 firms took on 1,049 trainees, of which 219 – one-fifth – were Oxbridge students. A further 613 contracts – 58% of the total intake – were awarded to other Russell Group university graduates (for the purposes of this survey 'Russell Group' graduates don't include those who went to Oxbridge). That left the UK's other universities supplying just 156 (15%) graduates to the top firms, with the remaining 61 (6%) coming from overseas universities.

Of the firms that responded to the survey, Hogan Lovells had the highest proportion of Oxbridge trainees: 27 (44%) of the 61 trainees the firm took on in 2013 were Oxbridge-educated, with a further 31 (51%) coming from Russell Group universities. The biggest employers of Oxbridge graduate trainees by number were Linklaters with 40 such recruits (32% of the firm's total intake), Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) with 32 (39%) and Allen & Overy (A&O) with 30 (33%).

The firms that took part in the survey were also asked to provide statistics for 2010. Nineteen firms supplied this information. In 2010 Oxbridge graduates accounted for 24% of the intake at these firms, compared to 23% across all trainee intakes joining in 2013. There is also no meaningful change in the number of Russell Group students taken on – these graduates accounted for 55% of the total in 2010 and 56% in 2013.

Slow progress

On the face of it, this research is disconcerting. It is easy to see how perceptions persist of law – especially private practice – being a profession dominated by a privileged white, middle class group. However, at the leading law firms diversity and social mobility do appear to be getting pushed higher up the agenda. 

Among the top firms that responded to the survey, A&O visits the most universities (47) – and by a considerable margin. This number has more than doubled from 2010. The magic circle firm, where senior partner David Morley helped launch industry-wide social mobility effort PRIME, has also recorded the sharpest fall in the proportion of its Oxbridge trainees – from 47% in 2010 to 33% in 2013. 

"Initiatives are having an impact," maintains Hogan Lovells graduate recruitment partner James Doyle. "At the law firm level there's a real focus on social mobility. The people we recruit do come from a variety of different backgrounds, and I think that's quite important."

The legal sector has high hopes for PRIME in particular. Launched in 2011, PRIME brings together law firms and in-house legal teams across the UK to provide work experience placements for students from underprivileged backgrounds. PRIME has grown from 22 founding firms to 80 today, and hundreds more placements have been added to the scheme in the three years it has been running. A 2013 report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission said the legal profession was among those taking the most action on social mobility, and PRIME in particular was praised for improving access to the industry. 

PRIME joint ventures between in-house corporate legal teams and law firms improve access to a broader range of legal roles for disadvantaged students. At least 10 such partnerships are now in operation, including Slaughter and May and ITV, HSF and RBS Group, and Baker & McKenzie and Google. These allow students to experience what life in-house might be like, providing an alternative view for those who may not be attracted to private practice. Moreover, work experience programmes like the one involving ITV's corporate legal team offer the promise of one-to-one tutorials and workshops after school, helping to dispel the idea that many underprivileged students hold that they would not 'belong' in the legal profession, discouraging them from applying in the first place.

Oxford University's Faculty of Law is currently in talks to become part of PRIME. Maureen O'Neill, the faculty's director of development and co-leader of the university's PRIME working group, which launched last year, expects that within six months Oxford will have made a formal commitment to the scheme. "Oxford really wants to help with PRIME," she says. "Informally, we are getting things into play, but we have to organise a huge number of people and talk things through with all of the other PRIME partners. We are absolutely elitist in wanting the very brightest students to come, but we don't care about their background or income."

The barriers

The difficulty, of course, is in identifying the very best talent from universities outside the Russell Group bubble. Pragmatically, firms simply cannot visit every university in the UK in the hope that they will find standout individuals, and do not have the time to go through every application from every university in detail to spot those with potential from lower-ranked institutions. If nothing else, the cost of hosting events at universities across the country soon becomes prohibitive.

Graduates from elite institutions also have access to careers coaching, such as interview preparation and application advice, which may not be as accessible to students from disadvantaged backgrounds at other institutions. When applications at top law firms take into account extra-curricular activities as well, it is arguable that the process further discriminates against the underprivileged who, for a variety of reasons, may not have had the money or opportunity to engage in events outside of school.

These are all issues being addressed by Aspiring Solicitors, an organisation founded last year by Norton Rose Fulbright associate Chris White to look at legal networking opportunities with several firms and universities. Aspiring Solicitors visited more than 40 universities last year and has 83 student ambassadors (including 19 at Russell Group universities) involved in initiatives every month such as work experience, workshops, open days and lawyers' lunches. Some of the newest affiliate members of Aspiring Solicitors include Reed Smith, Simmons & Simmons and Olswang, and White is in discussions with several other firms he hopes to add to the team.

For White, this represents a chance to see exceptional candidates from lower-ranked universities, and help educate them on how to best approach the recruitment process. "A lot of law firms say they want to recruit from more universities," he explains. "But that's like giving people the keys to a car and not telling them how to drive… It's about levelling the playing field and telling [candidates] how to do things like filling in forms and interviewing.

"Law firms simply don't have hundreds of people in their graduate recruitment teams; they can't go to every university in the UK, so one of the things we have to do is focus on Russell and non-Russell Group universities alike."

Making social mobility a reality

It may be some time before these moves are reflected in the statistics, however. Very few firms go as far as to use a so-called 'CV blind' application process, where information about school and university education is withheld from interviewers to avoid potential bias. CC didn't take part in the survey, but it says that it has seen its recruitment pool of universities grow by nearly 30% since it introduced a CV-blind assessment last year for its final interview stage. A third of those on CC's vacation scheme are 'Intelligent Aid' competition winners, where selections are made on the basis of an essay submitted to a panel of judges.

Macfarlanes followed suit by introducing blind interviewing for its 2014 Easter and summer vacation schemes, although initial invitations to the graduate open days where vacation scheme interviewees were chosen were still based on an assessment of the candidates' CVs. The firm is considering extending its CV-blind approach to its training contract offers this year.

It is understandable that City firms in particular may still want to target Oxbridge. After all, the universities contain a wealth of suitable candidates and have a track record of success. Yet it still looks like more needs to be done to secure equal opportunities for those educated elsewhere. In 2009 a report by the government's social mobility tsar, Alan Milburn, found that lawyers born in 1970 – those likely to be at the peak of their careers today – grew up in families with an income 64% greater than the average.

Dispelling this notion that the legal profession is best entered through the old boys' clubs of privilege and leading universities will undoubtedly take time. And while the UK's top firms have stepped up their efforts to widen their talent pool, this latest research underlines the extent of the challenge they still face.   

• Click here to view the top 30 graduate intake

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Legal Week Intelligence Law Student Report 2014

The population of law school students is increasingly diverse in terms of ethnic origin but our research reveals that this diversity is not yet translating into a more diverse cohort being offered firm placements. Moreover, the findings reinforce the Oxbridge bias revealed in Legal Week's graduate trainee diversity research, as well as highlighting a gender and social background bias.

The Legal Week Intelligence Law Student Report 2014 (LSR) measured the opinions, aspirations and experiences of 2,500 UK university law students. It found that law school intakes continue to be notably more diverse than the country's population as a whole: white students make up 64% of the 2014 student respondent base, compared with 86% of the UK population (as drawn from the 2011 census). Similar figures are found at the leading universities in the country: 68% of Oxbridge student respondents are white, as are 64% of non-Oxbridge respondents. But when it comes to securing law firm placements, the LSR found that:

• 47% of Oxbridge students attended a law firm vacation placement scheme but only 27% of non-Oxbridge students did so. 
• 32% of males attended a law firm placement scheme but only 28% of females did so.
• 32% of white students attended but only 23% of ethnic minorities.
• 38% of privately educated students attended a vacation scheme but only 26% of state-educated students.

These findings could shape students' perceptions of diversity at the top law firms and their preferences when applying for training contracts. 

The LSR surveyed students' views of top global, UK international, national and City firms across a range of criteria including diversity, equal opportunities, work/life balance, training and prestige. At present, however, students do not consider law firms' 'attitude to diversity' to be an important issue when choosing a firm, ranking it 12th out of the 13 most important factors. But in the eyes of students, some firms are delivering better than others as diverse workplaces. For diversity/equal opportunity perception, the top firms are: Linklaters (best among global firms), Pinsent Masons (UK international firms), Irwin Mitchell (national firms) and Macfarlanes (City firms).  

• The 2014 LSR was released in June. For more information email [email protected] 

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The Russell Group

The Russell Group is an organisation representing 24 leading universities across the UK, including Oxford and Cambridge as well as the universities of Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, the London School of Economics, University College London, King's College London and others. Where the research conducted by Legal Week refers to 'Russell Group' universities, it excludes Oxford and Cambridge as they are separately identified. www.russellgroup.ac.uk.

 

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Wragges' diversity credentials

One firm that has set up a number of diversity initiatives is Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co. As well as being a founding member of Aspiring Solicitors and a member of PRIME, the Birmingham-based firm has several programmes of its own to help students from underprivileged backgrounds.

"A lot of our work is at the schools level," says Lorna Gavin, head of corporate responsibility at Wragges. "We are trying to target schools with a make-up that is not being represented in the legal profession." 

Wragges' 'Day in the Life' scheme, founded in 2006, is concentrated on state schools in inner-city Birmingham and London that have a high proportion of black and minority ethic students and a higher-than-average proportion of students on free school meals.

Every year around 70 of these students are invited in to Wragges' offices, where they get the chance to have one-to-one discussions with trainees and get a feel for the firm. From this pool, 10 to 15 outstanding candidates are brought back for a week of work experience, followed by a 12-month mentoring programme where they are paired with a trainee. 

The scheme also includes visits from business heads to talk about the client perspective. Finally, one student is given financial support towards their university course.

Wragges also runs events with Pure Potential, an organisation that encourages sixth-formers to apply to university. At a recent event with Aston University, 100 sixth-form students attended legal case study sessions run by Wragges' diversity and inclusion executive, Lisa Perkins.

"We try to raise aspirations," explains Gavin. "There is still a perception among some kids who think 'I can't work there'."

For the last three years Wragges has also had a relationship with Elevation Networks, a social enterprise targeting Afro-Caribbean students. This year the firm will extend its mentoring programme by advertising for five Afro-Caribbean students to take part in next year's vacation scheme.

Related:

Law's university challenge – firms have raised their diversity game but the obstacles are daunting

Students vote A&O top international firm as interest in legal careers continues to wane