Addleshaws joins BPP for student diversity initiative

BPP Law School has joined forces with a law firm for the first time to launch a groundbreaking diversity initiative.

The law school has teamed up with Addleshaw Goddard to introduce a scheme that will give six law students from non-traditional backgrounds the chance to participate in its summer vacation scheme.

Programme mentor Julia Chain, a commissioner for the Commission for Racial Equality and chief executive of The Kite Consultancy, who helped to devise the programme, said the traditional process of selecting students for a training placement pigeonholed a certain type of person.

Chain said firms favoured students with an exceptional academic record and also gave a higher regard to those who studied at a particular university.

BPP chief executive Peter Crisp added that the programme aimed to "find innovative ways of identifying talent for the profession, especially from areas which have hitherto been underrepresented".