Eversheds apprentice scheme offers debt-free route into profession

Eversheds has become the first major firm to offer students a fully-funded apprenticeship route to becoming a solicitor.

It will take on six to eight apprentices this year, all of whom must have a minimum of five GCSEs grades A-C, including Maths and English, to qualify. They must also be expecting "good A level results" equivalent to 300 UCAS points.

The scheme, run in conjunction with BPP University, will last six years and grant apprentices paid time off to attend classes and study online for a law degree. Last year Mayer Brown became the first City firm to offer the solicitor apprenticeship route, although its apprentices must pay for their LLB. By contrast, Eversheds is picking up the tab.

"Sorry to interrupt but you've been here a few years longer than me; could I ask your advice?"

Eversheds will pay its apprentices a starting salary of £17,200 in London and £15,200 in the regions, increasing "incrementally" each year. The firm told RollOnFriday the apprentices would begin in an admin role in a legal team, with the complexity of work increasing over time. It means that after five years they will be collecting partners' gym kits and amending their Wikipedia entries just like trainees.

If they survive an assessment by the SRA at the end of it, they will qualify as solicitors, having effectively received a free law degree and a pay cheque. Which would appear to be a very good thing for diversity in the profession. And certainly a better deal than this. Or this.

Eversheds Chief Executive Bryan Hughes said the Shed was "committed to unlocking and developing talent at all levels", while Tricia Chatterton, BPP's director of legal apprenticeships, said the scheme would "help ensure that the brightest future lawyers get the support needed to thrive, regardless of their background". Applications must be submitted by 8 April.

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Comments

When it comes to menial jobs carried out by trainees the best one I had (in the pre-internet days - I am that old) was to find a shop that had a Barbie camper van in stock. This was the must have toy that Christmas and my training principal's daughter simply had to have one.

I found one in Argos in Worcester. Needless to say I was offered an NQ role in the department.

Good idea Eversheds. Are you planning any initiatives to recruit slightly less annoying trainees?

As a 17 year old outdoor clerk in the late 70's, I was sent to Soho by a junior partner with, I think £70 cash, to buy a pornographic VHS video for a stag night. Beat that!

As an articled student I was once sent to a Downtown Eastside Vancouver "hotel" (read bedbug-ridden flophouse) to collect the meagre belongings of an incarcerated client of one of the criminal law partners.

A friend was acting for a well-known London hotel during his training contract. It transpired that, in flagrant breach of the guest Ts and Cs, a blue film production copy had made a feature in the hotel, and the hotel was clearly identifiable from the liveried products in the bedroom. The hotel was granted an injunction to prevent distribution of the film, but not before my friend was dispatched around the adult stores of Soho to establish how widely it had been sold and purchase all available copies of the film.