One of London’s oldest trainees has qualified six months ahead of schedule at Bird & Bird, after the City firm announced a 100 per cent retention rate.
The firm will be retaining all 16 trainees due to qualify in September this year, but 50-year-old Mary Smillie managed to complete her training contract in March after work experience was taken into account.
Smillie, who has qualified into the firm’s IP practice, said: “I’ve enjoyed my time at Bird & Bird and am thrilled to qualify into the seat I wanted. It’s great to see that everyone else has been kept.”
The former technical director for pharmaceutical company Teva said age can be a benefit to employers.
“I’m 50 but I still have a good number of years to give,” she said. “A lot of my younger colleagues are dreaming of partnership, but I’m not thinking about that because I really enjoy the job I do.”
The remaining 15 trainees will qualify into aviation, commercial, corporate, dispute resolution, employment and IP.
Great news and gives hope to many out there that securing a training contract and qualification is possible.
Wonder if she participates in the social aspect of being a trainee?
Great news! I’m a f40something and there’s hope for me yet!
Fabulous! Just goes to show that she’s doing it for the love of the job and not soley to go on and be a big-wig and earn tons of money. Good for her!
As a partner in a small IP/IT firm that actively recruits trainees who don’t fit the usual trainee mould (and gets fantastic trainees and then solicitors as a result) I think this is an excellent story. It is just a shame that it is unusual enough to be news.
As regards “Rob’s” post, what a strange question to ask. Plenty of trainees dont participate in the social aspects, regardless of age. Could you think of nothing more relevant to ask?
Companies are supposedly not prejudiced against “mature” candidates, but in reality the contrary is most often the case. Well done, Bird & Bird for such open-mindedness.
What a fantastic and heartwarming story, and good luck to Mary.
However, anyone who thinks this is a good omen as regards reducing age discrimination in the profession should think again.
Current economic woes have exacerbated what was already a truly miserable picture for anyone unfortunate enough to be categorised as ‘old’.
How a supposedly enlightened and intelligent group of people (ie lawyers) can so wilfully and capriciously ignore the maxim that with age comes wisdom never ceases to amaze and depress me in equal measure.
Legal protection notwithstanding, the profession remains one of the most ageist in the country.
Hooray. How refreshing. I think it’s a great idea to choose trainees from as wide a range as possible – not only in terms of educational background and culture but also age and life experience. A career in law can often be short anyway so qualifying at the age of 50 seems fine.
Well done to Bird & Bird for seeing the potential in this lady and to the lady in completing her training. Hope she has a fruitful career in law.
Well done Bird & Bird for wheeling out to the press a story about what positively good chaps you all are, when most likely you’re just like all the other London law firms – money first, staff second.
Congratulations Mary and all the very best in your new role! I thought myself quite an oddity when I qualified, aged 42, in September, great to see my little club expanding. Maybe other firms will take note of your achievement and broaden their thinking a little.
Great news!! I’m 28 and working in house as a paralegal with no sign yet of a training contract from my company. No more paranoia that I’m too old 🙂
Good for you, I am 50 and in my final year LLB
But as future lawyers u should all know that there is the equality bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against age.
I think we need to start changing the mould that one is finished over 35 .
I was an accountant and decided that I wanted a change in career and Lawyers can still practice or contribute way into there 60’s
Well done Mary, this should be of comfort to aspiring mature law graduates…
I recently completed a Stage in DG Comp of the European Commission at the age of 38 and received a six-month discount from my pupillage.
The European Commission Trainee Scheme was a very fair process. The European Commission has abandoned the “age 30” upper limit for trainees in 2005.
However, the pressure is on to secure the other six-months, and sadly, age does appear to be a consideration for some sets of chambers as are other factors such as university attended (“the Oxbridge bias”) and so forth… then there are the sets that look for “clones” in their future recruits to chambers…
Mature candidates also seem to have a lot to explain at pupillage interviews in what they have achieved with their lives which is far more taxing than at the tender age of 21!
Nonetheless, I have still managed to get to three pupillage interviews (including the GLS) if only after a very large pile of pupillage applications and endless cans of diet coke….
The best advice is to continue to plough away at those pupillage applications and gain valuable experience in the area of law you wish to practice in.
Also be realistic in making pupillage applications as 12 applications through Pupillage Portal is not many in a world of stiff competition….
On the plus side, my personal experience of applying for pupillage has made me very resilient which cannot be such a bad attribute for a barrister over the long term….
As a trainee who qualifies next March, at the age of 43, I have met a number of other trainees and potential trainees in their forties. Lots of firms recognise that ‘older’ trainees have a lot to offer (and I am not sure I would want to work for a firm that didn’t).
If you are not a ‘standard issue’ trainee don’t worry, there are opportunities out there.
Delighted with Mary’s news and hope you enjoy the law as much as I have. I qualified 10 years ago in August 1999 aged 49, just before my 50th in the November.
Great to hear that it can still be done and all credit to Bird & Bird for sticking with you.
Firstly, well done to Bird & Bird for retaining all of their trainees. Whilst doubtful that they are unaffected by the downturn, it is impressive. Nevertheless, that fact made only a small part of this article.
I expect the trainees at Bird & Bird are quite happy, and when it comes to retaining talent when times are good, they can probably expect a bit of loyalty in return. I wonder how many other firms can say that.
Not to detract anything from Mary. Well done for having the desire and motivation to do what you want to do.
Congratulations, Mary!
I have qualified at the age of 38 second time round – first in Germany, then here. My only concern is, that most middle-aged lawyers have family commitments and other responsibities younger people don’t have. This does not make them less valuable employees (on the contrary!), but it’s hard to juggle everything, when the workplace does not cater for this (e.g. hardly any part-time roles for lawyers, let alone for beginners).
Just to say in reply to the first post that Mary is wholly involved in the social aspects of the firm, not just with the trainees, and can give a lot of the trainees a run for their money on the sporting and social front here.
Well done Birds! How I wish that I did not suspect that being technical director of a major IP client had something to do with it, and that an equally good candidate without the client connection would have stood as good a chance of being recruited. But even so, Birds have a more open-minded recruitment approach than many firms.
I will qualify in a central London firm at age 47 in November. I am also a Lexcel Consultant who first started this journey more than 10 years ago and have since crossed the Atlantic, got married, took a break to study theology at Oxford, started three running clubs, won a Community Ambassador award for my volunteer work……….the list goes on and on and on…
These 10 years have been the most challenging but wonderful years of my life….there is a book there somewhere..just need to find the time to write it now.
I’m the mature trainee graduating in November. I didn’t say I attended BPP with Mary and remember her quite well.
A lovely story, well done Mary and well done Bird & Bird.
Whilst happy for Mary, I am appalled that her qualifying aged 50 should be so unusual as to be worthy of front-page news. I am 48 and read the story while ‘doing work experience’ post GDL-pre LPC. I am a single parent of three still-youngish children and made the decision to give up a highly successful 20-year career in magazine management to pursue a long-held desire to train as a lawyer. If law firms can’t see the benefit of training intelligent, tenacious, determined people with plenty of life experience alongside the bright young things then the recruiters within such law firms should be packed off for some substantial age-awareness training. After all, this is 2009 not 1969!
It is a fantastic victory for age discrimination achievement. I am still looking for this training contract not being the conventional middle of the road prospective trainee, well done to Bird & Bird.
Rob – Mary definitely participates in the social aspects. She is an awesome goalie in the ladies’ 5-aside footie team.
This is great though when you read on in the story – one can see why two Birds choose this 50 year old mature candidate.
Perhaps her role with a Pharmaceutical firm had some influence in the offer of traineeship!
though I am sure she matched the merits of other candidates in the competition.
It would be great if other firms looked to taking on mature applicants – in fact we would see more mature trainee’s if law firms were serious in business development – one cannot help seeing that pretty young things keep the partners interest especially as the days of the PA now fade into the distance.
The PYT really can give a confidence boost to an old hack…
Well done Bird and Bird – about time someone firmly put age discrimination out of the window instead of simply paying lip service.
When can I sign up?
Well done to Mary! When I tried for a training contract some years ago, I was in my 40s, female and mixed race. Needless to say, ageist, sexist and racist attitudes in law didn’t assist – I’m now working in another area and didn’t get the training ! But I think the more people like Mary that do break through, the easier this process of obtaining training will become. Congratulations and, again, well done.
Mary was my boss once. She is not a person to be messed with.!