Halliwells: future Manchester and London trainees left jobless
No room for future trainees at HBJ Gateley Wareing or BLG; Hill Dickinson offers lifeline
HBJ Gateley Wareing, which is taking over the bulk of Halliwells’ Manchester operations, has confirmed that it will not be offering any positions to the seven prospective trainees who were set to begin at the firm’s Manchester office next month.
The failed firm was due to have 17 trainees join across the all its offices next month, with another 17 expected to join in January 2011 and another 17 in June 2011.
Halliwells’ former graduate recruitment partner Paul Rose emailed all of the firm’s future trainees earlier this week to tell them that their training contracts have been withdrawn.
However, Hill Dickinson has offered a lifeline to a number of trainees due to join the now-defunct firm.
The Liverpool-headquartered firm, which this week agreed to take over Halliwells’ Liverpool and Sheffield offices, is to honour training contracts for those students due to join Halliwells in both cities later this year (10 trainees) as well as in 2011 (8 trainees) and 2012 (six trainees).
Hill Dickinson is also believed to be taking on all of Halliwells’ existing Liverpool and Sheffield trainees. Halliwells had nine trainees in Sheffield and 10 in Liverpool.
Elsewhere, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert (BLG) has made offers to five first-year trainees and will be retaining seven second-year trainees who are due to qualify in September. However, BLG will be taking on any of Halliwells’ future trainees and it still remains unclear how many existing trainees will move over to HBJ. Halliwells had 31 trainees in Manchester and ten in London.
BLG chief executive David Jabbari said: “Despite managing to safeguard the jobs of a significant number of former Halliwells staff, we are unfortunately not able to offer training contracts to those who had been due to start with Halliwells in 2010 and 2011. With great regret, we have had to make a business decision about what that practice needs and how it fits in with our overall trainee strategy.”
Meanwhile, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has said it would not be coming to the rescue of the newly unemployed future Halliwells trainees.
A spokesperson from the SRA said: “We’re not in the position to get into employment law related issues. We deal with regulatory issues and this is clearly a contractual issue. But one would hope that other firms might look sympathetically on their situation and try to help.”
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Readers' comments (43)
Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 7:21 pm
As one of the trainees who was due to start in August with Halliwells in Manchester, I am obviously extremely disappointed to say the least to have been told that my training contract has been withdrawn.
Given the small amount of future trainees that are affected, the fact that Hill Dickinson have taken on the trainees in the Liverpool and Sheffield offices, the fact that the trainees due to start in August have already been deferred for a year, and the fact that the business they were due to start in is still there, just under a new name, it is extremely disappointing that the two firms taking over the Manchester business have not been prepared to divide the future trainees between them.
To add to the disappointment, the trainees due to start in August were actually part of the same intake who started in March and are keeping their training contracts. The ones who started in March were deferred for five months, and those due to start in August were deferred by ten months. The decision as to how long the deferral was to be for was by random ballot!
We are now placed in an extremely difficult position, already a year after we were due to commence our training contracts. It would be nice to think that other law firms in Manchester would take the opportunity to step in and agree to take one or two trainees each, trainees who have already been through the Halliwells selection process and who have already obtained their LPC+. It would be great for the reputation of the firms who were prepared to do so, and also very much appreciated by the future trainees who otherwise risk having their legal careers ended before they have even begun, or at the least probably having to wait another two or three years to commence a training contract.
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 9:19 pm
Poetic justice!
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 9:41 pm
Maybe the time has finally come to offer some other route to qualifying as a solicitor than by training contract. Trainees have to have a law degree/diploma and the LPC to prepare them academically and practically. There could be an option to have a training contract as now (and salary) or a one year further training course (with payment of a fee). The Caribbean jurisdictions have no training contracts but they do have a 2 year practical course. People can then at least qualify and look for a job (n whatever field) as a qualified professional.
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 9:53 pm
Pat,
Seriously do some research. You are very much out of date.
I could dismantle your arguments easily.
Lawyers do not earn good money. When you divide the average salary by the amount of hours they work then on an hourly basis they earn very little indeed. The work is increasingly being done by paralegals anyway.
You are wrong on your energy arguments. You don't understand the issues which is very clear. Don't comment on things you do not know anything about. It's too complicated to explain but just research the issues.
Wake up.
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 11:08 pm
Good for Hill Dickinson taking on trainees - there is some honour left in the profession then. SRA - it is NOT just a contractual issue - it is an issue of solicitors bringing the profession into disrepute and someone should surely look into the Spinningfields deal as £10M seems to have disappeared into a black hole!
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SR Useless A | 22-Jul-2010 11:40 pm
This is a prime example of why regulation should be taken away from the SRA and passed to the FSA.
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Nosher | 23-Jul-2010 2:45 am
@Pat, best comment I have ever read on here!
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Anonymous | 23-Jul-2010 8:45 am
Advice to would be trainees
1. Think laterally
2. Get a group action started
3. Think about a career in banking the bonuses are bigger and better and people respect bankers more now than they do lawyers
4. Apply to be on The Apprentice
5 Apply to be on Dragons Den
6 Apply to be on A Simon Cowell show
7 Apply to be on Jeremy Kyle show
8 Write to your MP and your MEP
9 Write to the Minister for Justice
10 Think about a career in telesales
11. Learn from this that nothing is certain and keep it in mind as a useful experience as you go through life
12 Take up religion
Good luck
4. T
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Anonymous | 23-Jul-2010 9:37 am
The issue that these trainees and many law student can't seem to understand is that law is a saturated market.
There are few opportunities.
Students would have a better quality of life if they focused their energy on a career where demand is healthy
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Anonymous | 23-Jul-2010 9:55 am
What I find laughable is the fact that Halliwells told the trainees that they are not considered as assigned to geographical locations but rather as one intake.
Nice to see that was merely guff.
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