Ashurst and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) have become the latest law firms to sign up to use a new hiring initiative aimed at boosting social mobility.

The new tool, the Contextual Recruitment System (CRS), from specialist recruitment agency Rare, can be used by law firms in conjunction with their existing application processes to make it easier to identify talented students from less privileged backgrounds whose results and CVs may not highlight the difficulties they have overcome.