Spurned Shoosmiths Trainees Start Petition
Solicitr has been inundated with e-mails from concerned would-be Shoosmiths trainees…
The worried future lawyers have responded to Shoosmiths request for them to withdraw from their training contracts with the firm or defer without any offer of financial compensation by starting an online petition .
The petition states:
We understand why firms need to defer trainees. But we should be compensated for the inconvenience this has caused us, arising from the fact that we had relied on starting this September.
According to www.thelawyer.com, Shoosmiths’ last-published PEP was £396,000*. They are only asking 10 of this year’s intake to defer. They can afford to compensate us.
We are asking for compensation at the market rate, to cover our debt repayments and to enable us to do something constructive with our time off.
We thought we were joining a firm that cared about its employees. This is a very poor way to begin the employment relationship.
And their stated aim:
To bring to the Shoosmiths partners’ attention the widespread condemnation that this decision has produced.
To urge them to consider the damage they are causing to their firm’s reputation amongst their clients, employees, future trainees and contemporaries in the legal profession.
We would be very grateful for your support.
Deferred training contracts are something of a hot topic at the moment; here are some useful helplines for anyone needing advice:
Solicitors Regulatory Authority: www.sra.org.uk Telephone: 0870 606 2555
Law Society: Junior Lawyers Helpline Telephone: 08000 856 131
April 2, 2009
i thought arthur scargill retrained as a politician
April 2, 2009
They have my sympathy, not sure this is the best way to deal with it but I guess they don’t have many options.
April 2, 2009
Poor treatment tho.
April 2, 2009
I feel sorry for you but this is just plain stupid!!
April 2, 2009
get down to excel and do some demonstrating instead
April 6, 2009
the petition states, “to do something meaningful with our time off”……………err, yeah so why not just get a job!! for example, paralegal, legal exec. or if you want to be ‘moral’ and ‘meaningful’ charity work!!
April 6, 2009
the petition states, “to do something constructive with our time off”……………err, yeah so why not just get a job!! for example, paralegal, legal exec. or if you want to be ‘moral’ and ‘constructive’ charity work!!