58 Thursday May 26 2022 | the times
Student Law
5
junior salary increases at the same ele-
vated rate as over the last 12 months.
“One consequence of a continued,
steady increase in headline rates, which
firms will be wary of, would be a salary
squeeze at mid-senior associate level
and the knock-on effect on the reten-
tion of more experienced lawyers.”
In other words, the present crop of
junior lawyers may be earning salaries
beyond their wildest student dreams,
but they may never get a pay rise.
Soaraway salaries have other ramifi-
cations, says Jason Connolly, the chief
executive of JMC Legal Recruitment.
He says that over the past 12 months,
US law firms in London have on aver-
age grown their lawyer headcounts byTraining of the next generation of
social welfare lawyers has had a boost
from a collaboration between City law
firms, legal groups and an education
provider.
The Social Welfare Solicitors Quali-
fication Fund aims to widen access to
justice for users of services and expand
social mobility into the legal profession.
Social welfare law remains popular
with students and covers areas
including debt, discrimination, mental
health, welfare benefits, employment,
education, community care, immigra-
tion and housing.
But legal aid cuts and pressure on
local authority budgets mean that
thousands of vulnerable people are in-
creasingly unable to get legal help for
these issues.
That underfunding means that
training opportunities for aspiring
social welfare lawyers are scarce.
Meanwhile, the cost of legal training
puts it out of reach to many from less
affluent backgrounds.
An alliance of 18 law firms is working
with the City of London Law Society
and the Young Legal Aid Lawyers
(YLAL) group to help the vulnerable to
get the legal representation and
Unintended
consequences
of the City
salary wars
Pay rises for newly qualified solicitors could lead
to firms expecting more, writes Jonathan Ames
Silly money is sloshing around the
junior levels of City law firms with
newly qualified solicitors at the offices
of some American firms raking in start-
ing salaries of more than £160,000.
Their top-flight English counter-
parts trail behind, but solicitors at those
firms are still being handed between
£100,000 and £125,000 on the day that
they qualify.
That pay inflation, about a 25 per
cent rise over the past two or three
years, is rooted in several factors, in-
cluding sterling’s weakening position
against the dollar, and a boom in trans-
actional work during and since the end
of the coronavirus pandemic combined
with a shortage of recruits.
But the bubble — if not about to burst
— could begin rapidly to leak air.
Longstanding figures in the Square
Mile legal market point out that the
salary wars have created a dilemma for
law firms and individual lawyers. That
level of pay inflation cannot automati-
cally be passed onto clients through
higher fees, not least because hourly
rates for some City partners are hover-
ing at about £1,000.
As a result, says Tony Williams, a
former managing partner of Clifford
Chance who is head of Jomati, a legal
consultancy, “lawyers will have their
chargeable hours expectations signifi-
cantly increased if a dramatic reduc-
tion in partnership profits is not to re-
sult”. If there is one thing that keeps eq-
uity partners awake at nights, it is the
thought of partnership profits slipping.
Booming salaries for junior lawyers
are butting up against what commenta-
tor jargon refers to as strong economic
headwinds. Rising inflation generally
in the West, a global food crisis trig-
gered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,
and falling output in China because of
lingering Covid have caused global
markets to become bearish.
“Law is traditionally a lagging indica-
tor as the first stages of a downturn can
produce a range of restructuring and
insolvency work,” Williams says, argu-
ing that City lawyers are unlikely to be
the first in the dole queues. “However,
law firms are now significantly larger
and carrying a much higher fixed cost
base due to higher salaries. This may
cause firms to take remedial action,
such as short-time working or redun-
dancies, sooner than they might have
done in the past.”
Specialist recruiters are counselling
caution. “There is more likely to be a
levelling out in the pace of salary in-
creases across the City, especially in
light of the economic slowdown, as op-
posed to a bursting of the bubble,” says
Simon Morley, the director of EJ Legal.
He says: “It is difficult to see how the
UK firms, in particular, will sustainThe City’s magic circle firms have increased salaries to compete with US giantsabout 30 per cent. In contrast, the large
English firms have about 5 per cent
fewer lawyers.
Within the past fortnight Clifford
Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus
Deringer, two of the so-called magic
circle English practices, ramped up
newly qualified pay to £125,000. It is
likely that the three remaining elite
firms — and others in the top ten — will
be unable to resist following suit.
English City firms are struggling to
fulfil their vacancies, Connolly says,
and have turned to candidates from re-
gional firms and even foreign qualified
lawyers from abroad. “If we were to go
back two years, this would have been
very rare,” he says.Bigwigs team up to fund lawyers for the vulnerable
assistance that they need and provide
lawyers for an underfunded and
undermanned field of practice.
Aimed at those already working in
social welfare law as paralegals or case-
workers, the fund covers the full
preparation and exam costs under the
solicitors’ qualifying exam education
provider Barbri. This means they can
study part-time alongside their present
roles and qualify as solicitors.
More than £207,000 has been se-
cured to fund the first cohort of 22
social welfare legal workers, who began
the SQE1 preparation course last
month. The hope is that more firms will
join to fund dozens of places annually.
The firms on board so far are:
Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy,
Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Clyde & Co,
Eversheds Sutherland, Freshfields,
Latham & Watkins, Linklaters,
Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright,
Shoosmiths, Simmons & Simmons,
Stephenson Harwood, Travers Smith,
Towers & Hamlin, Weil Gotshal &
Manges, and White & Case.
Siobhan Taylor-Ward, a YLAL com-
mittee member who is a housing and
social welfare solicitor at Vauxhall Law
Centre, says: “In the face of extremely
challenging times, the legal profession
has come together, and City firms haveacknowledged the importance of social
welfare lawyers being able to become
solicitors.”
She says that the scheme “goes some
way to helping talented aspiring
lawyers to qualify, encouraging those
who may not otherwise be able to
afford the SQE to qualify as social wel-
fare lawyers”.
Ezzatullah Zamani, an asylum and
refugee caseworker at Duncan Lewis
Solicitors, is among the first group to
benefit from the scheme.
His work involves assisting vulnera-
ble clients, including victims of
domestic violence, modern slavery and
those fleeing conflict and persecution
such as unaccompanied asylum-seek-
ing children. “It is incredible to me that
[the fund] will allow me to become a
solicitor,” he says, adding: “It’s a dream.”
Charlotte Coleman, a paralegal at the
Centre for Women’s Justice, has also
started her training through a grant
from the scheme.
Coleman’s work at the centre, which
seeks to hold the state to account and
challenge discrimination in the justice
system around male violence against
women and girls, includes client com-
munication, drafting, attending court
hearings, and legal and policy research.
She says: “As a solicitor I will be ableto litigate on behalf of clients whose
cases are strategically important in
combating prejudice in the criminal
justice system. Neither my employer
nor I could have afforded the qualifica-
tion fees, which exceed £10,000.”
She adds that without the fund she
would not have been able to fulfil her
aspirations.
Until 2010, the Legal Service Com-
mission — now the Legal Aid Agency
— funded hundreds of grants of more
than £20,000 each to help to cover the
training fees and salaries of young legal
aid lawyers.
Since that ended others have stepped
in to help, but on a much smaller scale,
including the Legal Education Founda-
tion’s justice first fellowship scheme.Catherine Baksi
A double Paralympian and world and
European swimming champion turned
aspiring solicitor has set up what is
thought to be the first society for legal
apprentices.
Amy Marren, 23, who was born with
a missing hand, retired from swimming
in 2020 to focus on her legal career.
She is in her fourth year as a solicitor
apprentice working with the in-house
team at BPP University and aims to
qualify as a solicitor in 2024.
Passionate about her route to
qualification, Marren takes the view
that apprentices miss out on some of
the networking experiences enjoyed by
those who have taken the traditional
route. She has launched the BPP Legal
Apprentice Law Society to give future
solicitors the chance to interact and
share their experiences.
Free to join, membership is open to
all legal apprentices and not limited to
those attached to BPP. Branches in
London, Manchester, Leeds and Bir-
mingham have “centre captains” to en-
courage those in different regions to
join and stay connected via optional
WhatsApp groups.
Aimed at post A-level students, the
solicitor apprenticeship is a six-year
programme that combines theoretical
study with on the job training, working
alongside qualified lawyers. Earning
while they learn, apprentices qualify
without the student debt that hangs
over most who take the path of univers-
ity, law school and a training contract.
Marren says that becoming an ap-
prentice was “the best decision that I’ve
made outside of sport”. She explainsthat most apprentice learning pro-
grammes are done remotely, even prior
to the Covid-19 pandemic, and many
apprentices are alone at their firms or
companies in going down that route.
She hopes that the society will bring
them together and make them feel
“part of something bigger” than their
employment, and gain invaluable net-
working and career development skills.
Since its launch last year, the group
has amassed more than 200 members
across the country.
Jackie Hutchinson, a first-year para-
legal apprentice at the law firm Fra-
gomen in Sheffield, west Yorkshire, is
vice-captain of the Leeds centre. She
joined “to connect and network with
like-minded people”.
“As the first and currently only ap-
prentice in my firm, I felt that there
wasn’t anyone I could speak to about
the course in a personal manner, but
joining the legal society has allowed me
to meet people in the same situation as
myself,” she says.
Apprentices, Hutchinson says, “can
miss out on the social aspect of studying
that they would have had if we had
chosen a more traditional route into
law. Joining the society allows for us to
have that crucial aspect of our course
and allows us to help maintain a
healthier work-life balance.”Paralympic
swimmer
champions
apprentices
Catherine BaksiAmy Marren winning European gold in- She left the pool for law in 2020
GETTY IMAGESexclusive to subscribers
17 years later My long wait
from graduate to trainee
State school network Are
you in the 93 Percent Club?
Pro bono unit at 50
Founders were thought to
be ‘dangerous left-wingers’
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