Fair access to the legal profession

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/jan/05/social-mobility-legal-profession-law

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City law firms are exploring ways to remove barriers that prevent students from lower-income backgrounds pursuing a career in law.

To attract the brightest and best, firms are keen to ditch the perception that law is an option only for privileged, public school and Oxbridge candidates and the profession is actively encouraging social mobility.

The Coalition's social mobility tsar Alan Milburn, said in a report last May that the legal profession is at the "forefront of driving activity" to become more accessible.

Law firms aren't just talking the talk, they're walking the walk, with outreach programmes aimed at encouraging aspiration and broadening the outlook of pupils who may not otherwise consider a career in law. They offer a range of initiatives providing work experience, mentoring, skills training and financial support, and opening up recruitment processes.

Engagement starts early. Linklaters gets involved with children in Hackney's primary schools from age five and invites around 750 under 16s from local schools into the office each year to give them a taste of life in an international law firm.

After 16, the firm takes a more focused approach, providing work experience for 60 London-wide students in receipt of free school meals or who would be the first in their family to go to university, tracking their progress as they go to university and beyond.

Firms have developed programmes that provide long term support to students over their senior school career and beyond. Slaughter and May won a Law Society Excellence Award this year for its Key Project at a school in Islington, in partnership with The Access Project. It supports students from year nine, the year before GCSEs, until the end of their A-levels, giving them weekly one-to-one tutorials, after-school workshops and career insight events. Pupils are given help applying to university, with advice on UCAS applications, interview masterclasses and assistance visiting universities.

Herbert Smith Freehills has developed Networked - a five-year scholarship programme that provides work experience, mentoring, skills training and internships, plus an annual bursary during their academic degree, to five students from local boroughs from year 12.

There is help for university students too. An initiative at Addleshaw Goddard seeks to identify graduates whose school record may not reflect their ability or potential. Its Legal Access Scheme fast tracks them on to a summer placement, from which it recruits 40% of its trainees. Candidates are assessed and those who do well are offered an assessment centre place, from where the most successful candidates are offered a training contract.

Like many firms, Norton Rose runs initiatives to help students locally. It works with Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, running an annual six-month programme for year 12 students. They take part in a mixture of work experience and skills workshops designed to build confidence, including personal impact training, negotiation, networking, one to one CV surgeries and legal case studies.

The firm also runs a scheme aimed at students in the north. Its Impress – social mobility: North to South programme is targeted at 12 to 14 year olds at schools in the Ashington area near Newcastle. In collaboration with the Ashington Learning Partnership and Durham University, the programme is the brain child of trainee Adam Smith. He went to one of the schools in the Ashington Learning Programme and Durham, and felt that children from across the country should be able to aspire to pursue careers in international law if they have the talent and inclination.

The 12-month scheme is designed to give students an appreciation of the path to a career in law from university on, with the top performer winning a day at the firm's London office.

Increased social mobility cannot be achieved with the efforts of individual firms alone. In recognition of this, 23 firms joined forces to create the profession-wide PRIME initiative with The Sutton Trust. Supported by the Law Society, PRIME commits firms to provide work experience places for disadvantaged students equal to half the number of training contracts they offer. Others have signed up to the deputy prime minister's social mobility strategy Business Compact.

The Law Society is also doing its bit, including funding LPC scholarships through the Diversity Access Programme to LPC students and a grant to the Black Lawyers Directory which runs two programmes for ethnic minority students.

Law Society data shows the profession remains over-represented by those from private schools and professional backgrounds. While progress is being made, as Milburn's report noted there is still more to do. The Legal Services Board's move last year, which requires firms to collect socio-economic data from their staff and potential recruits, may give firms an incentive to step up the pace.