Exclusive: Law Society slams firms for bias towards clients' kids

The President of the Law Society has criticised firms which give children work experience purely because they are related to clients.

RollOnFriday approached the Law Society for comment after a source disclosed that a Norton Rose Fulbright partner routinely provided clients' children with the perk "on a non-merit basis". Last year she gave work experience to the offspring of a contact at Citibank, while earlier this month the daughter of an in-house lawyer at Deutsche Bank spent a week in the partner's team.

Law Society president Jonathan Smithers told RollOnFriday, “High quality work experience is at a premium and students tell us that access to it is a major obstacle to entering the profession. This is particularly true for those without personal contacts in the profession". He said that the Law Society was committed to "ensuring equal access to internships and work experience placements based on merit”.

Three corporate lawyers and Jocasta, whose father is very important

A Norton Rose Fulbright spokeswoman denied that the partner circumvented official policy to provide work experience opportunities. She said that while it was inevitable that the firm would be approached by "individuals, clients, and organisations" seeking work experience either for themselves or on behalf of others, "ad-hoc" places were only taken up "where the individual meets the selection criteria and interview process, including those you referenced".

Letting students play CandyCrush in the corner for a week because they are lucky enough to be a client's child is a practice by no means limited to Norton Rose Fulbright. And the firm pointed out to RollOnFriday that it provides in excess of 150 work experience places every year in London to less privileged children, filling around 60 places from local schools and through social mobility programmes including the PRIME strategy, and around 100 with children from diverse backgrounds and children with disabilities.

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Comments

The NRF spokesthing is not being wholly accurate: during my time there (2013 - 2015) the firm ran multiple work experience weeks and open days, with a dedicated week and open day for clients' children. It was not ad hoc, it was systematised.

The equivalent formal scheme at Reed Smith was, until recently, called 'Friends of the Firm'
Mostly partners' kids and those of influential clients. Still running, albeit under a different name

In what world does the Law Society think we live?

It is distasteful that the offspring of clients get work experience more easily, but in the real world who isn't going to bend over backwards to keep a top client happy?

"Hi, it's so and so from x bank, my son has just finished his A-levels and wanted some work experience for a week this summer, can you help?"

"No sorry, we are not allowed to - policy.... but while I have you on the phone , have you had time to consider that latest proposal re fees?"

"... [hangs up]..>"

As of a couple of years ago Hogan Lovells was running a scheme for "contacts" of partners and clients.

This happens at Travers Smith as well. I found it kind of depressing, but I think even more depressingly, it happens everywhere.

This is common amongst a number of firms.

It gets worse when some have an apparently systemic habit of giving the children of clients or partner connections TCs:-this happened in each of the 05 (partner's client's daughter), 06 (the junior of partner's Dubai-based 'female friend'), 07 (tax partner's client's son) etc etc years that I was at [redacted], which has a smallish intake as it is.

The results could be quite embarassing - which is unsurprising when the candidates had CVs that would otherwise struggle to get them a spot pulling pints at the local pub (only a mild exaggeration). A drunk Grad rec officer even admitted at a drinks event that these candidates were facilitated through the Assessment Day process, despite some of their scores and/or qualifications not meriting an offer let alone a spot at the assessment day.

This happens a lot. There's also this thing called the "Old Boys Network".

Who you know, not what you know etc etc.

Interesting comments. Anybody know what additional steps these firms go through (if any) to satisfy themselves that they are not committing an offence under the Bribery Act 2010 by offering a position to the child of a client/contact? Presumably they could only do it if the internship/job was open to all candidates who satisfied selection criteria and was fully transparent and awarded on merit, otherwise they risk it being considered a bribe: "Of course we'd be delighted to hire your son, Mr CFO" (in the expectation that you'll return the favour by getting your company to send several hundred thousands pounds of work my firm's way, rather than instruct those other law firms that he didn't get into). I know that JP Morgan got into big trouble with the US authorities recently for offering internships and jobs to the children of Chinese politicians in the hope that they would pull strings to send work the bank's way. I thought the Bribery Act went even further than the FCPA. Perhaps the SFO simply has bigger fish to fry...

rather than complain about it, take action to redress the balance. write to your local state secondary school and volunteer to have a quality but unconnected student come in for a week. I just did it and know plenty of teachers who have students crying out for such opportunities. warding.

This is bad but happens across all industries - media, fashion etc etc. And a week's work experience is clearly different from an internship,a TC, an assessment day place. An example of the latter happened while I was at M&R. Assessment day places are coveted and this daughter of Mr ££ had not even submitted the application on time. That did shock me.

Seen it happen at Sullivan & Cromwell. Big US guys at it too.

To be clear, the problem is not that children of clients/partners et al. get work experience. It is that work experience in law firms is the springboard to a training contract. That is what happens at firms like Travers. It's again a greater problem with the way law firms recruit than a simple work experience nepotism. Chambers use probing interviews to get to the heart of a candidate's intellect, law firms use the vacation schemes, some dubious facile question about "motivation" relating back to them and then a bunch of pseudo scientific hotchpotch assessment day. Even if client's kids get an easy ride all the way, which they do, their piss poor aptitudes don't massively differ from the liars, blaggers and big boobs who get through the hoops and HR tickboxes.

The firm I trained at went one further and gave a TC to a child of a client.

Foolishly she started boasting that she didn't have to do an interview. She denied it later on.

The East Midlands firm still has her within its ranks. It lost a lot of people who prefer to work in a meritocracy. Her intake are mostly now partners. She isn't even an associate.