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Rose emailed all of the firm’s future trainees earlier this week to tell them that their training contracts have been withdrawn.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 | 27-Jul-2010 4:29 pm
What is going to happen to other staff members such as in IT departments? Will they be made redundant as well?
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Anonymous | 28-Jul-2010 3:02 pm
I agree with "Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 3:52 pm"
Read Suskind and then get out of the profession as soon as you can.
Your nothing more than wage slaves to Partners who will do absolutely everything to maintain their equity niche. Just take one glance at the vain-glorious PEP publishing round that happens every year.
You can make more money, for less effort, with greater social benefit in practically any other industry. You should all face up to the fact that for 6 years at least you will be doing nothing more useful than learning how to spell, stealing office milk and charging honest people to print the same self-serving bits of paper.
I have a training contract and I'm looking forward to telling them where they can shove it.
Get a life. Get a real job.
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Elisabeth bellamy | 30-Jul-2010 2:33 pm
My sympathies to all who have had training contracts withdrawn, particularly to those who may have previously turned down other offers. However, welcome to the harsh realities of the economic downturn. Many others, trainees, solicitors and other legal staff are currently without employment and, as a business owner and manager, I can understand why it has not been feasible for all of the training contracts to be honoured in this situation.
Many graduates do seem to think that they have a "right" to a job - this is not the case - either now or later in life.
I'm sure the good candidates - with the right attitude will get snapped up quickly - meanwhile my advice is try to get another job over the summer - any job, and focus on re-applying whilst you are working. Doing something positive with your time, rather than complaining, is far more likely to impress another employer.
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