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Blake Lapthorn halves recruitment after deferring trainees

24 April 2009 | By Corinne McPartland

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Blake Lapthorn is scaling back its graduate recruitment programme for 2011 by “about half” after asking its trainee solicitors to push back their start dates.

The firm has held a series of face-to-face meetings with its prospective trainees due to start in 2009 and 2010, asking them to defer for 12 months for a flat payment of £5,000.

But for those who do not want to take the cash Blake Lapthorn has pledged to try and find them paralegal positions with the firm where available.

Head of HR Alistair Gray said: “We’ve limited the requests for voluntary deferrals to half our 2009 and 2010 intakes so that we can recruit from the excellent and numerous candidates who have submitted online applications for 2011.”

Just over 30 firms have so far confirmed that they are deferring their trainee start dates including Linklaters, Travers Smith and Trowers & Hamlins, which are all paying £10,000 to trainees who agree to delay their training contracts by a year.

Others, which have also introduced voluntary deferrals, include Clifford Chance, Eversheds, DLA Piper, Mayer Brown, Norton Rose, Pinsent Masons, Shearman & Sterling and Taylor Wessing.

Shoosmiths, meanwhile, is the only firm that is not compensating deferring trainees or those who decide to withdraw their training contracts and is understood to have made the move compulsory after insufficient volunteers come forward.

The only other firm to have introduced compulsory deferrals is Field Fisher Waterhouse, which as a result has put its graduate recruitment programme on hold until next year.

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Readers' comments (5)

  • Anonymous | 24-Apr-2009 10:33 am

    God this looks really really bad for anyone even hoping for a TC! Thanks god I got mine when I did! I just don't want to think about what long-term damage this recession is going to do to our profession........

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  • sam | 24-Apr-2009 10:55 am

    Every one of these news stories includes a line slating Shoosmiths. Further destroying their reputation in graduate recruitment.
    No doubt theyll still have no problem filling their TC vacancies in future as places are so limited, but the best just wont apply. You only have time to fill in a certain number of applications, and I cant see any of the best graduates willing to pick this firm.

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  • FourChavsShareACanOfRedBull | 24-Apr-2009 1:46 pm

    They should be offering the deferral fee in addition to the paralegal work, hardly an unreasonable request.

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  • Helen Gavaghan | 26-Apr-2009 0:17 am

    It is not just your profession. You ought to have fought for your profession or asked for help. It was on the cards years ago.

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  • Anonymous | 29-Apr-2009 3:38 pm

    reed smith also made their deferrals compulsory

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