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Rescued Semple Fraser trainees face mixed fortunes

14 March 2013 | By Becky Waller-Davies

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Trainees affected by the collapse of Scottish firm Semple Fraser have been rescued by local firms but face very different futures.

Maclay Murray & Spens has taken on four ex-Semple Fraser trainees. All four have entered the same practice areas as at Semple Fraser and will be treated as any other trainees at the firm with regard to staying on post-qualification. One is due to complete their training contract in May, two will complete in August and one joined the firm in September.

One trainee who transferred with a supervising partner to McClure Naismith has just two months until his training contract finishes, but it is unlikely that he will stay on after qualification.

A trainee now at Anderson Strathern is 18 months into his banking training contract and will stay within the banking team. Semple Fraser operated fixed training contracts, in which trainees stayed within a single department for the duration of their training. He moved to the firm with a banking partner and associate.

His fate is as yet unknown as Anderson Strathern reasoned: “It really depends on the workload, no trainee is guaranteed a place.”

A spokesperson for Dundas & Wilson, which recruited five ex-Semple trainees into its Edinburgh office, said: “It would be unfair to the trainees to speak about individual cases - the company takes its responsibility to training very seriously and are happy to honour the contracts.”

Semple Fraser collapsed last week, with management stating: “It is clear that the business is no longer sustainable in this market and the partners have no option other than to place the firm in administration.”

In other trainee news, it emerged earlier this week that major City firms are manipulating their retention rate figures by handing out short-term contracts to qualifying trainees (11 March 2013).

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Readers' comments (4)

  • Concerned | 14-Mar-2013 1:14 pm

    What about those trainees who were due to start at Semple Fraser last year but were deferred until Sept this year?

    And what about the same trainees who received traineeship offers from Semple Fraser in 2011 and 2012 who now find themselves having to get back into the dog-eat-dog traineeship hunt (but at a huge disadvantage)?

    Obviously nobody benefits when a law firm goes bust, but future trainees are often forgotten about.

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  • Anonymous | 15-Mar-2013 8:54 am

    Your formidable journalistic skills would be better spent analysing how this situation came about/ why a once-successful firm ended up in insolvency/ the contrasting fates of the partners compared to the rest of the firm. That would be more interesting than tittle-tattle and gossip about the retention prospects of the unfortunate trainees who are, sadly for them, at the mercy of events.

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  • Retired | 15-Mar-2013 7:39 pm

    I don't quite see how the comment by Concerned is "tittle tattle and gossip". Go on then, Anonymous, use your own "formidable journalistic skills" to tell us in fine analytical detail how this situation came about...

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  • Anonymous | 16-Mar-2013 0:12 am

    At what point did the Members realise the LLP was insolvent? Did they at that point advise creditors? Does the deal done reflect true value for the creditors? At what point in the overall timeline were the Members negotiating their exit and looking to manage clients across?

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