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Legal careers: opening the doors to success

28 April 2021 / Chris Bones
Issue: 7930 / Categories: Opinion , Training & education , Profession , Diversity
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It’s time to transform the law for the better by diversifying routes into the profession, says CILEX chair Chris Bones

One of the historic failures of UK public policy has been to conflate quality higher education with attending a university. It has led to diminished public value for technical education and created a ‘one size fits all’ offer that increasingly fails to deliver the best outcomes for employers or students.

In the law, this had the unintended consequence of reinforcing a belief in the value of a law degree obtained from a very limited number of institutions, and in so doing has excluded thousands of potentially outstanding—and often diverse—lawyers from accessing fast-track careers.

The recent Skills for Jobs White Paper calls out the illusion that a degree is the only route to success. Writing the foreword to the White Paper, Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, says: ‘Unlike many of our [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] peers, this country has not always shown further education

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
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