Career Clinic: Do London law firms favour UK applicants?

Times are hard at the moment - the competition is even harder. If you are in doubt as to how well your application will stand up, wait a few years until the market picks up. In the meantime, since you are from Brazil, maybe get some UK legal experience (paralegal/voluntary etc) to bolster your CV.

Anonymous -11 May 2009 | 15:32

I would have thought that the major London corporate firms, who would generally have a large international base, would be quite open to foreign candidates.

Corporate Rainman -12 May 2009 | 11:54

I am an Indian lawyer who tried to find a job last year around August. It didn't work out and the general feeling I got was that the foreign lawyers (at least unless they're converted under the QLTT) are not welcome. What would happen after the QLTT again cannot be guaranteed. So even if you did a top-up qualification (something like an LLM) from a good uni, in my view it would be hard until you convert yourself.

Anonymous -12 May 2009 | 12:27

It's got nothing to do with whether you're a foreigner or not. Foreign lawyers aren't qualified in English law and until you have requalifed, your qualification means very little, sometimes nothing depending on the jurisdiction and similarity with English law or lack thereof. You don't expect an Indian firm in, say, Mumbai to take me on to do Indian law work with 15 years PQE as an English lawyer, do you? I think you are going to have seek out the London office of a firm practising the law that you are qualified already as a lawyer in. Or look for a UK firm with clients doing business in that country and who might benefit from someone like you, especially if you are keen to requalify as an English lawyer so you will be dual qualified. M

May -13 May 2009 | 15:24

Sorry, I was answering the Indian lawyer. On re-reading the original poster's question, he/she is not even qualified in his jurisdiction (Brazil). Sorry, but I don't think you have much chance just with a law degree from Brazil. I am not saying what you have is worthless, it's just a currency that we don't use here, so in that sense it's pretty useless. I know a Venezuelan lawyer who did about five years' in-house work in Venezuela before coming to the UK. She is currently looking for paralegal work in the hope that some law firm will give her some credit for doing legal work albeit in a country whose legal system has nothing to do with UK law. She has tried and failed to get a TC and I am afraid none of her friends are surprised by this. M

May -13 May 2009 | 15:41

I am a American-born, Aussie-trained solicitor. Before qualifying in New South Wales I applied for a TC to approximately 20 magic circle and silver circle firms. Over half granted me an interview, and over half of my interviews resulted in TC offers. As such, my experience would suggest that foreign-trained law students are given a fair shake in London on the whole. However, as the UK Home Office has recently tightened its Visa requirements, those in need of a work permit to practise in the UK should only apply for TCs if they are certain they will be able to secure a visa when the time comes, bearing in mind that immigration policy can change greatly over time.

Anonymous -13 May 2009 | 18:40

I do think UK firms should consider UK candidates first. It is the government's responsibility - via immigration law - to protect the labour market, with foreigners filliing genuine gaps where there is a real skills shortage. Any other approach could mean suitably qualified native candidates stuck with no job and unable to go to other countries to work when those countries themselves have stricter immigration laws. In other words, there needs to be a level playing field. If Australians, Americans and Indians etc want to work in the UK, then Australia, America and India need to adjust their immigration law to allow UK candidates to compete on the same terms in those foreign markets. Anything else leads to an imbalanced labour market and results in unemployed talent.

jack vance -15 May 2009 | 04:36

As a non-UK lawyer working in England, my experience has been that UK firms do not care about your nationality.
However, they do not give value to anything accomplished outside the commonwealth unless it has Harvard written on it (they have not heard about Yale).

Anon -09 Feb 2010 | 21:54