A little while ago, a trainee at a rather conservative provincial firm complained to me about the monthly obligatory drinks with the partners. As the tepid white wine flowed at a recent event, the conversation had turned to politics — with the result that she was left feeling both uncomfortable and professionally vulnerable.
“They were all complaining about how terrible it was that hunting had been banned,” she recalled. “I had to really bite my tongue.” Realising that her trenchantly-held contrary opinions could damage her standing in the firm, she kept silent. But it left her wondering: if the partners felt so strongly on the issue, would they have actually hired her if they’d known her views?
The need to practice workplace diplomacy is something most lawyers have to face at some point in their careers. It could mean nodding politely at opinions you find deplorable — or just not mentioning the amount of magic mushrooms you consumed during the festival season. How far should you go to mitigate the dangers that come with allowing others to make potentially damaging subjective judgements about your life?
Student politics
Politics can prove a fraught area, yet for young lawyers there are obvious benefits to be gained from getting involved. It can provide an invaluable opportunity for networking, occasionally with influential figures in the legal community. It can boost confidence and promote greater interest in important legislative developments. Above all, it gives the young professional a new platform for practising their verbal dexterity.
Andrew Scott-Taggart is a second-year law student at
He does, however, hold concerns about declaring his political hand in applications. “If I decide to go for a position in the Conservative Association and get it, do I declare it on my CV when applying for vacation schemes and risk having it seen by a Labour Party member when he is deciding who to interview?” Though he concedes that this isn’t his primary concern, he maintains that “it does nag slightly”.
Another Oxbridge student, who preferred not to be named, recalled being asked at interview whether he harboured political ambitions. “The question was obviously asked with the intention of distinguishing between candidates with real legal ambition and those that the firm thought they may lose further down the line,” he told Legal Week Student.
He adds: “I think that future involvement in politics would definitely be detrimental to my career as it would imply that I would not be taking my legal career seriously.”
And he notes that ideology is a further potential interview minefield. “My college has a very left-wing reputation and I have been involved in the student running of it. More than one interviewer has asked me why I chose that specific college.” He speculates: “I can only imagine that they were again trying to determine if I was a left-wing candidate for a position in a major commercial law firm and possibly not what they think would serve their best business interests.”
It seems that in
In June this year it was revealed that the US Department of Justice had systematically filtered out applications for positions as government lawyers or interns, based on use of perceived ‘left-wing’ terms. It found that “many qualified candidates” were illegally rejected because their applications contained phrases associated with social justice, or because candidates held membership of organisations such as Greenpeace.
Herbert Smith’s graduate recruitment manager, Claire Kinselley, says candidates should focus on the talents they can develop from politics. “We try to assess objectively and wouldn’t be looking at political affiliations. Canvassing, putting leaflets together, speaking events: we would look at these skills, not just at party membership”.
Lawyer-politicians
For those who successfully move into the world of corporate law, balancing political and professional draws can become a job in itself. Chuka Umunna is the Labour Party candidate for Streatham, and seems set to win the seat currently held by retiring MP Keith Hill. Following university he joined Herbert Smith. “I received first-rate training and worked with some amazingly clever lawyers,” he recalls. Yet he always knew that his ambitions did not lie in achieving partnership: “I thought, ‘My God, how long do I want to do this?’”
While remaining active in politics, Umunna sought to establish a new life balance, moving to focus on employment law at central
Indeed, on the day Legal Week Student spoke to Umunna, he was fresh from appearing on BBC2 to advocate the benefits of an energy windfall tax. Yet he concedes that this is not something he would or could have done while working with major corporate clients. And his advice for prospective trainees, especially those considering a career with a magic circle firm, is clear: don’t reveal your politics on your application. “I mentioned my involvement in debating, but not with the Labour Party,” he cautions.
Umunna agrees that firms have a right to expect trainees to make a commitment to the profession, and not to pursue it solely as a profitable pastime until their political careers take off. If elected, Umunna will join a fraternity of former corporate lawyers who have entered Parliament, including Tory Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Brokenshire and Bury St Edmunds MP David Ruffley, formerly of Clifford Chance.
Rights
While some might worry that they could be denied a training contract based on their party affiliations, the law in this area remains unclear. Recent reforms, however, point to an improvement in the legal position of candidates with less conventional political views. The Government last year amended the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations, removing the requirement that philosophical convictions be “similar” to those of a religious nature in order to be granted legal protection.
In the past, tribunals had held that it was permissible to reject candidates on the basis of their membership of a political party, but if political activity can be shown to represent a coherent philosophical belief, this will no longer be allowed.
While politics must be navigated with care, it is not the only area of a young lawyer’s life that could expose them to unwanted attention. The rise of social networking websites has raised a raft of new questions about the degree to which graduates should expose themselves to scrutiny.
Online indiscretions
The pitfalls are numerous. The legal gossip website Rollonfriday.com recently reported the cautionary tale of one would-be trainee’s experience with the world of online networking. Following an interview, the young man decided to run a Facebook search on the firm’s graduate recruitment officer. Unfortunately a slipped finger led to him accidentally ‘hugging’ her online. After firing off a suitable contrite email, all was smoothed over — minus the leaking of the email to the press — but it highlights the dangers of mixing what is essentially a tool for sharing news with friends, with a burgeoning career.
On both sides of the
Young lawyers are not the only graduates to find themselves in hot water over dubious online activity. Philip Clarke, a youthful political aide to the former Attorney General Lord Lyell, recently discovered to his cost the power of the internet to expose private indiscretions, when pictures of him ‘blacking up’ a friend, and making apparently racist jokes, found their way from Facebook to the Daily Mail.
While we might believe that our private lives are just that, in reality there are few people for whom a dossier cannot be assembled by any competent web user. As increasing levels of detail about our lives amass online, prospective trainees would be forgiven for feeling uncertain about the information they are unwittingly revealing.
As a source of growing concern, it seems appropriate to ask whether major corporate firms Google potential trainees? Herbert Smith’s Kinselley says not. “Online applications are assessed holistically,” she explains, “academic credentials, extra-curricular activities and motivations are all considered together”. While she denies it is accepted practice to run other searches on candidates, she advises that common sense be applied when using internet networking. “The individual has to use their own judgement, but with the controls you can put in place, the candidate does have a lot of power over what can be seen.”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Deborah Dalgleish similarly dismisses the idea that Googling is standard practice. “We feel this information is personal and not designed with employment in mind”. She does, however, state that, “if we had reason to think that any employee or prospective employee was regularly engaging in inappropriate behaviour of any kind then we would wish to look into it”.
Though few firms will admit to running internet checks on candidates, sources privately express the view that it is not unknown for recruitment staff to make discreet online enquiries, albeit unofficially.
Keeping it private
While it isn’t practical to entirely obscure your private life from potential employers, there are sensible mitigating steps that can be taken. Dr Yaman Akdeniz is a senior lecturer in law at the
“I tell students to ensure that their social networking sites are secure,” he says. “Things can be taken out of context and if you have a drunken night out in the pub it could end up affecting your employability.”
He also warns that while political views might not be legitimate grounds on which to judge a candidate, it is prudent to avoid advertising them openly on the internet. “Many students didn’t know until recently that there were privacy settings on Facebook,” he notes. “Now they’re finally learning to use them.”
The tensions between private lives, personal convictions and careers are not always easy to reconcile — and there can be few hard and fast rules. While exposing details about your party-going will rarely prove advantageous, details of your party affiliation is a more nuanced area, and will vary by firm. Yet the overriding message is clear: it is a brave candidate who invites unnecessary scrutiny of their life outside the law.
Finally, do spare a thought for barrister-to-be, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown. Despite securing a pupillage at Crown Office Chambers, de Lacy-Brown’s appearance on The Apprentice — in which he less-than-gloriously exited the show in its first episode — may well have damaged both his credibility and his fledgling career. If staying away from the internet is sometimes wise, avoiding TV cameras is surely a must.