Hogan Lovells has recruited its first set of trainees to be based in its low cost centre in Birmingham.
The firm has hired two trainees to work within its Birmingham Legal Services Centre and plans to continue to hire two trainees each year. The trainees will all start their contracts in the autumn.
The Birmingham training contracts are a separate offering from Hogan Lovells’ London training contracts. The recruitment process for each of the offerings is carried out independently and as a result candidates cannot apply to the Birmingham LSC to get a place in London.
Although the new trainees will be permanently based in Birmingham they will carry out part of their induction in London.
Seats will range across Hogan Lovells’ four core practice areas, which are corporate, dispute resolution, real estate and finance.
The Birmingham office was originally opened in 2014 and was designed to act as an “extension” of the London office. The office carries out low-cost process driven legal work such as document review processes, due diligence and real estate licensing.
Former global private equity head Alan Greenough leads the Birmingham office, which was originally set up with 20 lawyers.
Last year Hogan Lovells launched a scheme that now sees all trainees attend an internal business school as soon as they begin their training contracts. The business and social enterprise programme aims to teach trainees about non-legal business topics such as compliance, equity and debt financing, revenue streams, and risk. The programme is run in association with clients UnLtd and Ashoka.
Hogan Lovells recently revealed that it had retained 80 per cent of its qualifying trainees. The firm kept 24 of the 30 newly-qualified lawyers. Of the 30 NQs, 29 applied for a position and Hogan Lovells made offers to 25.
