Shoosmiths chief exec steps down in wake of trainee deferral row

Readers' comments (23)

• Anonymous | 28-May-2009 3:40 pm

  Just in relation to an earlier posting about PR advice. You can give the best advice in the world but if management ignores it or thinks they know best and want to do it their way then good luck to you. At that point you wait until the cause of the problem has been removed and then get on with the job of picking up the pieces, no matter how long it takes. A good reputation can take years to build and can be trashed in minutes thanks to poor management decisions, no matter how well they can be rationalised after the event.

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• Puff | 28-May-2009 4:45 pm

  To be clear, the money paid to deferred students is not being paid because firms feel students should have all-expenses-paid holidays or that students are greedy. The payments are to compensate students who had a legitimate expectation and, in many cases, contractual right to take up paid employment, but instead find themselves unemployed and looking for work while they wait another year. Students rely on the TCs they have accepted up to 2 years previously. If an executive signed a contract for a new job and handed in his notice only to find the new job has been unilaterally postponed, he would be able to pursue the company for breach of contract! Also, just because the bigger firms pay fees and some maintenance doesn't mean that a) students don't still incur costs/debts while studying the LPC (and GDL in some cases), or b) all students deferred by their firms even benefitted from the fees/maintenance packages.

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• Anonymous | 29-May-2009 4:35 pm

  The whole charade at Shoosmiths doesn't surpise me in the least in relation to trainees, redundancies etc. I am afraid that Shoosmiths have lost the thing which once set them apart from other firms and that was that once they actually cared about their staff rather than just the extra thousands in the partners pay packets. Its going to take more than just a change in the CEO to turn the rot around.

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