Allen & Overy and Freshfields have been found offering work experience to the highest bidders in a charity auction.
Partners at both firms offered the experiences as lots in an auction for The Duchenne Research Fund, which raises money to find cures for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sandwiched between a "Luxury Bespoke Scarf" and a "Private Jet Experience", Freshfields donated two weeks' shadowing during half term or summer breaks. A&O was "delighted" to offer one week's work experience in its M&A team, "perfect for 17-19 year old school or gap year student". The auction has begun online with minimum bids of £100 and will finish during a gala dinner to be held at the Lancaster London Hotel in May.
Opportunities for work experience at elite firms are as rare as hens' teeth and it is now widely accepted that, in the interests of diversity and basic common sense, candidates should be selected on the basis of merit rather than how much they can afford to pay. When RollOnFriday revealed last year that Norton Rose Fulbright had offered places to clients' children, the Law Society responded that high quality work experience was "at a premium" and access to it was "a major obstacle to entering the profession". While the intentions of the Magic Circle donors are laudable, allowing students to burnish their CVs thanks solely to the size of daddy's wallet makes a mockery of the firms' diversity policies.
However, young Tarquin will now have to settle for VIP tickets for Loose Women or Charles Tyrwhitt cufflinks instead. Both firms have said they will withdraw their lots after being contacted by RollOnFriday.
A spokesman for Allen & Overy said, “this was a well intentioned offer from a partner to help a great charity", but "we are vocal advocates of social mobility and as such have withdrawn the work experience offer from the auction to ensure our CSR efforts do not conflict". Freshfields' spokesman said that it provided placements to over 150 students from less privileged backgrounds last year, but the auction lot "does not fit with what we are trying to achieve with those students". A&O will make a donation to the charity instead, while Freshfields will also "reach an alternative solution with regards to their fundraising efforts".
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Partners at both firms offered the experiences as lots in an auction for The Duchenne Research Fund, which raises money to find cures for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sandwiched between a "Luxury Bespoke Scarf" and a "Private Jet Experience", Freshfields donated two weeks' shadowing during half term or summer breaks. A&O was "delighted" to offer one week's work experience in its M&A team, "perfect for 17-19 year old school or gap year student". The auction has begun online with minimum bids of £100 and will finish during a gala dinner to be held at the Lancaster London Hotel in May.
Opportunities for work experience at elite firms are as rare as hens' teeth and it is now widely accepted that, in the interests of diversity and basic common sense, candidates should be selected on the basis of merit rather than how much they can afford to pay. When RollOnFriday revealed last year that Norton Rose Fulbright had offered places to clients' children, the Law Society responded that high quality work experience was "at a premium" and access to it was "a major obstacle to entering the profession". While the intentions of the Magic Circle donors are laudable, allowing students to burnish their CVs thanks solely to the size of daddy's wallet makes a mockery of the firms' diversity policies.
However, young Tarquin will now have to settle for VIP tickets for Loose Women or Charles Tyrwhitt cufflinks instead. Both firms have said they will withdraw their lots after being contacted by RollOnFriday.
A spokesman for Allen & Overy said, “this was a well intentioned offer from a partner to help a great charity", but "we are vocal advocates of social mobility and as such have withdrawn the work experience offer from the auction to ensure our CSR efforts do not conflict". Freshfields' spokesman said that it provided placements to over 150 students from less privileged backgrounds last year, but the auction lot "does not fit with what we are trying to achieve with those students". A&O will make a donation to the charity instead, while Freshfields will also "reach an alternative solution with regards to their fundraising efforts".
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This sort of thing happens routinely. I was speaking with a former associate of a MC firm who said that they routinely offered work experience to students who were related to clients.
It's normally quite easy to spot this nepotism when scrolling through linkedin pages. There is absolutely no chance a random person would get a placement at a MC/SC firm at the age of 18. I have a particular acquaintance who goes to a poorly rated former polytechnic, and magically managed to obtain work experience at Clifford Chance one summer.
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Of course, although this is a genuine step towards creating a more level playing field, this doesn't solve the underlying issue as kids from privileged backgrounds can step further up and are likely to find multiple such work experiences, dabble in their own token entrepreneur experience, have travelled the world and speak a dozen languages etc..
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Rollonfriday, considering all the actual "news" you don't publish due to being wined and dined by city firms' HR/partners to keep it secret, you really need to do better than this.
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I have to say, at my firm, legal work experience is a nice to have, but not necessary. We look at the skills the individual has learnt in their life and their capacity to learn skills - the context in which those skills were learnt is not really important.
After all, it is essential that every trainee has experience of working in a cafe, and can make a good cup of coffee.
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However it was very bad PR to offer this and someone cocked up here. If the prize were work experience for your cleaner's son who is an immigrant it would be a different matter.
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Law firms can't stop people trying to use their contacts to get an advantage, all they can do is try to mitigate the consequences, and from what I can see they're not doing a bad job. All the big law firms subscribe to initiatives like PRIME (see www.primecommitment.org), which try to give candidates who can't call on daddy's (or mummy's) contacts an equal or better opportunity to get work experience.
That said, offering work experience for money was a bit of a blunder by the usually smooth PR machines at A&O and Freshfields..
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The only way to solve it is for the Law Society to ban the practice of offering work experience other than pursuant to formal programmes, assessed on merit.
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I'm happy to give anyone a go who has had the initiative to get in touch - or even to press their daddy's contacts. Doubtless HR in the main office would be appalled, but it hasn't come at the expense of anyone else, and it's always worked out well for us and for the students involved.
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So now they've caved into pressure from Left-wing lobbying and no-one will benefit.
Great result(!)
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Charity or not, by doing the above you make being able to get work experience about money. Work experience for someone who can afford it and get it with no merit, may, down the line, force out someone who didn't have the opportunity to buy that same experience.
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"Well who says life is fair? Where is that written? Life isn't always fair."
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