Law firms forge new career paths in bid to tackle social mobility

Helping to do the stocktake at her mother’s hair salon in south-east London gave Danita Antwi a taste for business, which is one of the reasons she wanted to become a corporate lawyer.

However, when Antwi finished school, she decided against the traditional route of a full-time university degree followed by a two-year training contract — a rotating placement enabling trainee lawyers to qualify. Instead, she opted to apply for a solicitor apprenticeship at the UK “magic circle” law firm Linklaters.

“I liked the idea of immediately going into the workplace where you’re up against real deadlines all the time,” says Antwi, now 20. “[It also] meant I could experience more practice areas. You’re not tied to the four seats you get with a training contract.”

Antwi is one of eight apprentices from 900 applicants who started with Linklaters last year as the firm took on its first cohort under the scheme. And the elite UK outfit is one of a number of top firms taking steps to open up new pathways into law — in the hope that it will also improve social mobility in a profession where those from wealthier backgrounds have long dominated.

In the UK, 64 per cent of people in law are from higher socio-economic backgrounds, according to a 2019 report from the Sutton Trust, a social mobility charity.

“The [legal] sector is still one of the least socio-economically diverse in the country, with barristers, solicitors and judges disproportionately coming from the same few schools and universities,” says Katy Hampshire, director of programmes at the Sutton Trust.

“The legal sector stands to gain significantly from levelling the playing field for those from less advantaged backgrounds who are hoping to pursue a career in law,” she argues.

The first modern solicitor apprenticeships started in 2016. They offer school leavers an alternative route into the industry through a six-year work and study programme that allows them to earn while they gain a law degree and qualify. Rather than paying tens of thousands of pounds to go to university, the scheme hands apprentices an immediate salary.

At Linklaters, apprentices are paid £28,000 in their first year, plus a £3,000 sign-on bonus.

But, while there were some early adopters of the apprenticeship scheme, most of the top-tier law firms were slower to join. Already inundated with applications from some of the best and brightest across the country, there was little incentive to change.

That started to change last year, when Linklaters joined forces with a group of large firms to start City Century, bringing together some of the capital’s most elite outfits to offer the scheme and increase its attractiveness. More than 50 firms have signed up, and about 150 apprenticeships will be offered each year.

“Solicitor apprentices are quite often the best kids in the most challenging situations,” says Patrick McCann, Linklaters’ director of learning. “I refer to them as the ‘Mozarts of their schools’. They are special. They are that one kid in the year of 200.”

The move is about business as well as altruism. When fellow UK “magic circle” firm Slaughter and May analysed staff data a few years ago, management discovered that socio-economic background made no difference to success. So, last year, Slaughters set a target to raise its numbers from more deprived backgrounds: from 10 per cent of lawyers to 15 per cent by 2033; and from 19 per cent of employees overall to 25 per cent.

I refer to them as the “Mozarts of their schools” . . . They are that one kid in the year of 200

“One of the really interesting pieces of info that [we] found was that, when people came in as lawyers from a lower socio-economic background they did just as well as everybody else,” explains Deborah Finkler, Slaughters’ managing partner.

“What I wanted was for there to be so much coverage of this [the firm’s targets] that when somebody who was 15 and living in Sunderland googled ‘law firms’ . . . they would see that there were these kinds of initiatives and it was something that they could do,” she says.

Still, challenges remain for apprenticeship hopefuls living further away who want to join elite firms, which typically have offices only in London. It is potentially far harder for an 18-year-old in, say, Yorkshire to leave home and support themselves compared with someone already living in or near the capital.

Efforts in the industry are not limited to school or university leavers, though. Firms such as Pinsent Masons and Dentons have also been looking at ways to expand the career paths of paralegals. In 2022, Dentons started a programme offering some of its paralegals the chance to qualify as lawyers. The firm is on to its third cohort and has so far given three associate jobs to qualifying paralegals.

“In some cases, the paralegal population have experienced challenges securing a training contract for a variety of reasons,” says Nicholas Cole, regional head of resourcing at Dentons in the UK. “We know, having had them in the business for a period of time, they’re tried, tested, respected, a known entity as opposed to recruiting externally.”

Pinsent Masons has reorganised its paralegals into a central team under its resourcing brand, Vario, and created new management roles and opportunities for promotion.

Entry-level salaries start in the low to mid-£20,000s and senior delivery managers can earn about £65,000.

The profession is also expecting the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination — a set of exams that has replaced the long-used Legal Practice Course and allows for a wider range of work experience to count towards qualification — to help make a legal career more accessible.

Some in-house legal teams are playing their part, as well. Deutsche Bank took on four trainees last year — for the first time in about 15 years.

“We look at social mobility, among other characteristics, which may not be seen as traditional in lawyers in private practice or investment banks,” says Patricia Anyaegbuna, senior counsel at Deutsche Bank in London. “But this diverse lens brings new perspectives. This was also key in our recent hiring of trainees again for the first time in more than a decade,” Anyaegbuna explains.