Thirteen members of the City Solicitors Educational Trust (CSET) have set aside £250,000 for next year to finance the new project – which aims to encourage students from a wider range of universities and backgrounds to consider a career in law – with similar totals expected for 2009 and 2010.
The school – which will start in summer 2008 at
The 13 existing CSET sponsors include City giants Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith, Linklaters, Lovells and Slaughter and May.
Macfarlanes, Penningtons and Watson Farley & Williams also represent the City, while
However, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Mayer Brown have already signed up as sponsors for 2009, while senior partners from existing members are understood to be in discussions with an additional 10 potential member firms.
Ashurst senior partner Geoffrey Green, who hosted this week¹s event to launch the project, said: "There is a real untapped source of intelligent people at new universities who we simply do not get to see. We need to change this - the main challenge is to get these people to put the likes of Allen & Overy and Linklaters on their shopping lists in the first place."
Most of the leading City firms take their trainees from the Russell Group of universities, which comprises 20 leading higher education providers, including
Organisers expect around 1,000 applicants for the week-long residential course, with that number to be whittled down to 100 through a mix of online and face-to-face assessments. Each student attending will also have access to individual guidance and mentoring for the remainder of their time at university.
The project complements the work of the Sutton Trust and
Ashurst corporate partner and CSET board member Roger Finbow told Legal Week: “We decided last year that we needed to partially re-think how we spent our cash and the outcome is the launch of this summer school. We want people to come out feeling more confident and not rule out the highest possible aspirations just because their university isn’t one which people normally recruit from.”
CSET management committee Jonathan Scott of Herbert Smith added: “There is a real problem in identifying those who may have underachieved at school but who have got the talent to come through. Collectively we can achieve far more.”
CSET is also reviewing its funding arrangements, with the contribution that each firm pays per trainee set to rise from £300 to around £400. However, a cap may be introduced so larger firms do not feel they are contributing too much.
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