Edwin Coe cancels autumn vac scheme

The litigation specialist has claimed that more students have been applying to its summer programme, making its two-week autumn scheme redundant.

Last year the autumn scheme was open to six students, three in the first week and three in the second and they had 140 applications in total.

Chief executive Tim Nash said: “Students just didn’t want to apply for the Autumn programme because it clashed with reading week and what we’re finding is that they’re under pressure from tutors to study during that time.”

Nash has denied the move was a cost cutting exercise.

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 major 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.

Magic circle firm Allen & Overy also closed its Easter vacation scheme for 2009.

The news comes after Edwin Coe increased its turnover by six per cent, with revenue rising from £13m to £13.8m in the 2008/09 financial year.

Meanwhile the firm has managed to avoid deferring any of its trainees and retained two of its three newly qualified lawyers this year.