Macfarlanes goes on tour

Macfarlanes' graduate recruitment partner John Hornby talks about Bristol Law School's staff/student cricket match and explains why the firm got involved.

"There is not an obvious connection between 11 City lawyers playing cricket in Bristol and recruitment. Nevertheless, that is the central purpose of Macfarlanes' sponsorship of Bristol Law School's staff/student cricket match, which this year occurred on 8 June.

Eight years ago I met with Oliver Quick (university law lecturer then also charged with career advisory duties). Macfarlanes had a number of Bristol alumni and we wanted to build on that foundation. The conversation turned to sport, and Oliver, himself a keen sportsman, enviously remarked on the amount of intra-firm activities that appeared to go on at Macfarlanes. I latched on to this and agreed to help revive the law school's long-abandoned staff/student cricket match by sponsoring it that year.

Even before that first meeting, Charles Martin, Macfarlanes' senior partner and Bristol alumnus, had established a summer drinks party principally for second-year law students after they finished their exams. The proposed cricket match built on this so that the formula now is a cricket tournament of two teams of students, one team of university staff and one team from Macfarlanes. In the evening, all the cricketers join up with the undergraduate lawyers' drinks (and barbecue) party to debate their cricketing successes and failures. Macfarlanes typically bring down two partners, two from the graduate recruitment team, some alumni and a number of trainees; they are all on hand to mingle with the students at the evening drinks to answer the full array of questions about life in a City law firm.

It is an unusual recruitment event but has resulted in bonds of friendship between a number of Macfarlanes lawyers and university staff, a higher profile for the firm than otherwise would be achieved at Bristol and a good flow of training contracts for Bristol students."