There are red faces all round at Berwin Leighton Paisner after the firm was caught being, ahem, economical with the truth about its trainee retention rate.

Last week the firm put out a statement saying that it had "offered roles to 15 of our 20 final-seat trainees with 14 accepting. This equates to offering to 75% of our qualifying intake." And a fairly uninspiring retention rate of 70%.

When RollOnFriday duly reported this one disgruntled reader pointed out that BLP in fact had 23 final-seat trainees, three of whom had decided to leave on qualification. The firm had 'disappeared' them in order to make its figures look better. Students interested in applying to BLP might want to know that its actual retention rate is a pisspoor 61%.

    A pork pie yesterday

A spokeswoman for the firm confirmed from her chair in the naughty corner that there were indeed 23 final-seat trainees but had nothing further to add.

Tip Off ROF

Comments

Anonymous 20 February 15 07:59

Most if not all do this. They also manipulate their pep figures, the number of female partners etc etc
All part of the game

Anonymous 20 February 15 09:31

Age old story... what numbers matter? Number applying - perhaps the three who left all got offers from somewhere better so didn't bother applying? Perhaps there wasn't a job at BLP they were interested in or maybe they really didn't like the firm. How many of the 15 got offered their first choice?

It's an unfortunate reality that without knowing the individual stories behind a particular firms figures each year low figures are always hard to understand. Clearly though firms that don't consistently have people not applying, e.g. because the "right" job wasn't available leave trainees and applicants with some uncertainty throughout the process.

Anonymous 20 February 15 09:44

Unlike more salacious stories, this one does actually matter. They appear to have told a porky pie. Not just to the market to save their blushes, but to potential new recruits whose future will be shaped by TCs at the firm.

Anonymous 20 February 15 11:10

"Age old story"? Nonsense. The reasons people leave on qualification certain vary, but what should not vary is a firm's willingness to be open and truthful about the figures.

Retention figures relate to retaining people. If all your trainees went off to join the circus, then you retained 0%. It's really that simple

Anonymous 20 February 15 11:18

This is absolutely scandalous. An international law firm knowingly putting out a false statement. If they've done this then what about the veracity of everything else on which they report, such as their profits?

The SRA should be all over this.

Roll On Friday 20 February 15 17:36

I work at BLP. The truly amazing thing is that only 3 wanted to leave.on qualification.

Roll On Friday 22 February 15 18:58

Future trainees use retention figures to decide where they will apply. BLP have had a markedly worse year for retention than their peer firms and have fraudulently manipulated the figures to cover this up.

Have never heard of another firm doing anything like this.

Anonymous 26 February 15 13:27

not to mention how many of those roles are actually permanent jobs and how many are 6-12 month FTCs!