Six in-house legal teams are exploiting the current changes to legal education to take on diverse trainees.
The paralegal service provider Flex Legal has partnered with the general counsels including those at ASOS, Vodafone, The Crown Estate, Trussle, The Phoenix Group and Next15 Communications for the scheme, called Flex Trainee.
It will entail the in-house teams taking on a candidate for at least a year of their qualifying work experience (QWE), as the training contract is now called. At the end of that year, the candidate will either stay on for a second year or move to another in-house team.
The trainees began on Monday 1 November and are employed by Flex on a salary of £32,000. They will take part one of the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE) next July and part two in April 2023. Upon completion of the required two years of qualifying work experience, the in-house organisation will have the option to retain them at no extra cost.
Flex is partnering with Barbri, who will deliver the prep for the SQE to trainees while they work. It sourced its trainee candidates, all graduates with an interest in a legal career, through two social mobility charities, Strive and Talent Tap. Flex interviewed 25 hopefuls before selecting the final six.
Flex CEO Mary Bonsor told The Lawyer the scheme was paid for by the apprenticeship levy, which sits unused at many organisations. Traditional training contracts cannot be funded using this money, but the SQE changes means this scheme can tap into it.
Nicholas Cheffings of The Crown Estate said: “The Crown Estate is delighted to be involved with the Flex Secondment programme, which enables us to hire a very talented individual and help her to achieve her ambition of qualifying as a solicitor. What is particularly important to us is that, through Strive’s involvement, the programme is perfectly aligned with our commitment to broaden access to those who have potential but may otherwise lack opportunity..”
Mark Sanford, the GC of Next15 Communications, added: “We have had paralegals in our team for a while and the SQE route is a great move forward for the profession, enabling paralegals to become qualified solicitors more easily. Flex has taken this a step further by taking on trainees themselves and launching Flex Trainee. I love the fact that the trainees have come through Strive – we get a great resource with backing from Flex Legal and contribute to helping social mobility within the profession.”
Bonsor said that Flex hopes to run two cohorts per year in future and more in-house teams and boutique law firms had already signed up to take part in the spring round.
