Freshfields and Shearman & Sterling sign up to Rare
updated on 04 October 2012
Leading law firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Shearman & Sterling have joined the legal client list of Rare, the specialist graduate diversity recruitment company. Rare's legal clients for the 2012-13 recruitment season now include four of the five Magic Circle firms in Allen & Overy, Freshfields, Clifford Chance, and Slaughter and May, as well as other high-profile clients such as Herbert Smith, Hogan Lovells, Travers Smith and the Magic Circle barristers' set, Fountain Court Chambers. Meanwhile, Shearman & Sterling has become Rare's first US-based client.
Established in 2005, Rare works to connect exceptional candidates from diverse backgrounds with some of the world's leading employers. It does not advocate the use of quotas to increase diversity among the top professions and instead focuses on working with people who possess excellent credentials - 93% of Rare candidates have the equivalent of AAB or better at A level. The organisation also claims that its candidates from black and ethnic minority (BME) backgrounds are 27.5 times more likely to find careers with world's top employers than without the help of Rare. Eye-catching claims aside, since Rare started working with the legal sector in 2011, it has helped 15 outstanding BME candidates to secure training contracts with Clifford Chance. Rare's legal development programme, called 'Articles', has also helped 40 participants secure places on 50 vacation schemes.
Following the news of Freshfields' and Shearman & Sterling's participation, Lianne Mosely, the director of legal recruitment at Rare, said: "The fact that firms of the calibre of Freshfields and Shearman & Sterling are working with us is a sign that our approach of sourcing and developing the best talent from diverse backgrounds works. Given that we try to help our clients hire the future leaders of their organisations, it is extremely important to us that our candidates go through the exact same interview and application process as anybody else. We steer clear of quotas and backdoors, which allows our candidates to get in because they are brilliant and we hope that they will go on to lead."
