Students face heavy competition for vacation places as firms slash schemes
Despite many law firms becoming more optimistic about the end of the recession, would-be lawyers looking to secure a vacation scheme in 2010 will be facing a tougher battle as firms reduce their placement numbers.
Clare Harris
Earlier this year many law firms announced that they would be scrapping several of their planned vacation schemes in reaction to the raft of deferrals they made to help stave off the credit crunch.
Eversheds and Field Fisher Waterhouse were among the first City firms to cancel all of their summer vacation schemes and close their graduate recruitment programmes until 2010 after asking their trainees to defer their start dates.
Allen & Overy (A&O) also closed its Easter vacation scheme for 2009 due to lack of interest from students. At the time the firm claimed that more students had been applying to its summer
and winter programmes, making its 10-day Easter scheme redundant.
Elsewhere, Halliwells scaled back its summer placement from three two week-long programmes in Liverpool, London and Manchester to just two in each City.
Charles Russell, meanwhile, cut its two-week summer programme in half in a bid to control running costs.
To make matters worse, 2010 looks increasingly bleak for those wishing to secure vacation schemes.
Lovells has made the biggest cuts, scrapping next year’s Christmas and Easter schemes. Last year the firm ran two schemes in the summer, lasting three weeks each for 30 candidates, and one at Easter lasting two weeks for 30 students. Historically, Lovells also ran a 30-place, two-week Christmas scheme.
But for 2010 the firm will now only be running two three-week schemes over the summer for 50 candidates and has replaced its usual Christmas and Easter placements with a series of insight and work-shadowing days.
Lovells denies the cuts have been part of a wider cost-cutting exercise but are instead a reaction to student feedback requesting more flexibility.
“Those participating in the insight and work-shadowing days will have an opportunity to undertake case studies and workshops as well as spending a day in one of the business groups shadowing a trainee solicitor,” explains associate director of legal resourcing Clare Harris.
She insists the new model works better in the current highly competitive recruitment climate because it allows a higher turnover of students to visit the firm.
“These events will not only create opportunities for more people to visit the firm, they will also provide a cost-effective method of giving students access to the business,” says Harris.
The news comes after Lovells contacted its autumn 2009, spring 2010 and autumn 2010 intakes and offered them a £5,000 cash payment to delay their start dates by 12 months, and £2,500 to defer for six months.
Lovells is not alone, however. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has scrapped its usual three-week Easter placement for 20 candidates and will instead only run its usual three lots of three week-long summer schemes in 2010.
Freshfields UK trainee recruitment head Deborah Dalgleish denies that the move is a cost-cutting exercise but is simply down to the fact that the Easter scheme was the “least popular” placement.
“I don’t know why but universities all seem to be having their Easter holidays at different times this year and we found it incredibly difficult to find a single three-week slot where every university could take part,” Dalgleish reveals. “Also we’ve found that with summer exams and things, the Easter scheme is the least popular with students.”
A&O has kept its Easter scheme on hold for 2010 after axing it earlier this year, while CMS Cameron McKenna will no longer be running its two-week Christmas programme.
But students will not only see a reduction in vacation schemes to choose from, they will also see programme numbers fall, resulting in heightened competition for placements.
Pinsent Masons will be cutting its summer intake by 33 per cent, from 150 to 100 candidates.
But what of the reaction on campus? Warwick University student Chrissy Vassiliou says securing a training contract is hard enough without law firms axing one of their main recruiting pools.
“There are a lot more students wanting to go into law and securing a vacation scheme is one of the most important things to get under your belt at university,” she argues. “But with vacation schemes being cut like this, there’ll be a lot of students rethinking whether law is really the career for them.”
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Readers' comments (13)
Anonymous | 7-Sep-2009 11:52 am
It is unfortunate that training contract numbers and vacation scheme placements are being reduced, however these are signs of the time. The Warwick student seems to be forgetting that law is a competitive industry. If training contract numbers are being reduced then it only seems sensible that vacation scheme numbers should follow. It seems silly to have loads of vacation scheme placements and few training contract vacancies.
The student argues that the reduction in places might lead to "alot of students rethinking whether law is really for them", as if this were a bad thing. It is tough, it is difficult and it is demanding but that is the nature of competition. The Law Society was correct when it said that students should be totally honest with themselves when evaluating whether they were good enough to get a place.
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Kwik-e-Mart | 7-Sep-2009 9:52 pm
I agree absolutely agree with the previous poster.
However I am stunned by claims that there has been 'lack of interest' in certain schemes. Let's be honest - if this was the case, firms could offer places to candidates that they cannot accommodate on the 'popular schemes' on those that they claim are unpopular.
The claim that there is a lack of interest is insulting to the cohorts of sufficiently qualified students who remain without a training contract or a vacation scheme.
In my opinion, the behavior of firms such as Eversheds (suspending Graduate Recruitment altogether) is at least commendable for its honesty.
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An LPC student | 8-Sep-2009 9:18 am
I cannot see much benefit in short "insight" visits and open days. One of the purposes of a vacation scheme is to get the firm know the student. The students are doing enough research on the firms anyway. A vac scheme is like a prolonged assessment centre without the stress of a flash performance. Without the impression that I made during my vacation placement I would have never secured a training contract.
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Anonymous | 8-Sep-2009 10:24 am
I fully agree that firms should be honest. I very much doubt that there is a "lack of interest" in A&Os easter vs. Similarly, I know a friend who received a rejection letter from a firm that had cancelled its graduate recruitment programme. The email read along the lines of: "Thank you for your application....many excellent candidates....you have been unsuccessful" etc. I found that wholly offensive, implying a candidate wasn't good enough when in fact they had made the decision not to recruit anyone.
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Anonymous | 9-Sep-2009 5:30 am
Terrible time to be trying to enter the law, I fear for the lost generation. Investment banking will pick up first - stay away from the law
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Lynn Searcy | 9-Sep-2009 9:41 am
I agree with the above posts but graduates should remember that not doing a vacation scheme does not automatically mean that you won't get a training contract, even in these days. I have just qualified at one of the top ten firms (mentioned in this article) and I didn't do a vacation scheme. I had other useful experience on my CV and did well on my assessment day. Don't give up.
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Anonymous | 9-Sep-2009 3:05 pm
I agree with the above post. I have secured a Training Contract for 2011 and I did not attend a vacation scheme. Instead I became a Paralegal after university and worked my way up that way. For me, leaving university and getting the experience was a far more sensible move than jumping into the LPC and taking a gamble that I would secure a Training Contract. Having that practical experience really helps for the assessment day also. Of course, the problem is getting that Paralegal job, perseverance is everything.
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John, DLA Piper | 9-Sep-2009 5:20 pm
Not all firms are cutting back. Mine has taken a strategic decision to maintain trainee recruitment - you have to think further ahead than the next quarter
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Anonymous | 9-Sep-2009 8:56 pm
This happens every cycle, things turn down, firms cut back, the number of new entrants to the profession shrinks - then in 3 years time all firms will be fighting for talent and salaries will sky rocket. It happened 2000/2001 and again 2006/2007. Its just unfortunate if you want to train now.
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Anonymous | 10-Sep-2009 12:26 pm
Not sure that some of you are being realistic about the business world. You have to remember that many law firms have made very talented, qualified lawyers redundant over the last 12 months and many are still worried for their jobs. It just does not sit well with this to then spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on vac schemes. It is as simple as that. Whilst law firms have a moral obligation to those entering the profession they have a higher and more concrete and credible obligation to those people already working in their firms to do what they can to ensure job security for those people who have dedicated their lives in the boom times to their employer and thos people have to come first.
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