City law firms face criticism over trainee recruitment methods
updated on 31 October 2013
Charles Plant, chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), has asked the legal profession to question its recruitment methods. Plant criticised a system that forces students to decide on commercial law at such an early stage of their legal careers.
The SRA chair was speaking alongside Baroness Deech and Alan Kershaw - chairs of the Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards respectively - at a forum on the outcome of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). As reported by Legal Futures, Plant highlighted that the UK system of legal graduate recruitment is not "followed anywhere else in the world". He added: "Why do we have this extraordinary procedure where young people at the end of the second year of university have to decide whether to go to commercial law firms?" Plant concluded that the current system reinforces the importance of training to develop transferable skills, which would allow lawyers to change more easily from one branch of the law to another.
The three regulators have confirmed that they will not pursue setting up a formal Legal Education Council as proposed in the LETR; they will instead work for greater collaboration between the regulatory bodies.
