How would you like to pay your firm for your Training Contract?
As if the burden of student loans and other debt was not enough for graduating law students, how would you feel if you then had to pay for your training too? If you think the idea sucks, you might not like the proposal floated last week by Dan Hull over at What About Clients : If associates get all the benefits of training at my law firm in the first three years, and can’t really add much value anyway, why don’t …
As if the burden of student loans and other debt was not enough for graduating law students, how would you feel if you then had to pay for your training too?
If you think the idea sucks, you might not like the proposal floated last week by Dan Hull over at What About Clients :
If associates get all the benefits of training at my law firm in the first three years, and can’t really add much value anyway, why don’t they pay us?
….Initially, say, in the first 2 or 3 years, under [this proposal], an
associate would be paid in the form of experience of being immersed in
learning how to be a lawyer as he or she worked with more senior
lawyers. A "trainee" would: (1) be paid either very minimal or at most
paralegal-level salaries–don’t laugh, a good paralegal is often
markedly more valuable and cost-efficient than a "brilliant" first-year
associate–and perhaps some other benefits; or (2) actually pay the law
firm a nominal stipend–a "tuition", in effect, to cover some costs
(and risks) of "training"–in a flexible apprenticeship arrangement
which could be revisited.
How do you like the idea? Cost-cutting a step to far or motivational brilliance?
Got a story? Contact team solicitr
September 4, 2008
By the time you actually qualify, you would be so broke you would have to sell the clothes of your back, and then you wouldn’t even have a decent suite to turn up to work in.
Imagine if the firm doesn’t even keep you on after and if they did you would only be getting your own money back for a time.
September 4, 2008
i start my TC shortly and it couldn’t come soon enough frankly. reading about people not getting offers or havign their’s postponed makes me feel nervous for anyone in that position. my debts stress me out every time i think about them, they are the wrong side of £12k even though i have worked most way through uni and law college. this idea is totally disgusting and seems to have been mooted surprisingly enough just as the economy is getting tight even for law firms. i hope potential trainees or whatever they are termed in the states have more sense than to join this guy’s firm. surly firms should bear some of the burden for enticing people into and training the best graduates for the profession!
September 4, 2008
For the ‘training’ i received at my firm which is a well known national , I would not have paid them at all; if payment was up front I would have demanded a refund. It would take a brave trainee to suggest they were not getting their money’s worth under such a scheme. You are pretty much over a barrel already when you apply for a training contract with debt, competition for places etc; this would just hand even more power to firms. If their selection process is so cr*£ maybe they should incentivise their HR departments to perform better rather than going for more leverage over recruits. what an as$ho!3!
September 4, 2008
i didn’t, i wouldn’t, it’ll never happen, so who cares
September 4, 2008
i concur with my namesake at 3, what an a$$£ole