Taken at face value, our research this week on the universities attended by last year’s trainee intake at the top 30 law firms is worrying. Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in moves by the UK’s leading firms to increase diversity within their ranks. Initiatives like PRIME, whose goal is to improve social mobility by offering work placements for school children from less privileged backgrounds, have had an impressive uptake within the legal profession. A report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission even said the sector was among those taking the most action on social mobility.
Despite this, our research reveals that graduates from Russell Group universities accounted for 79% of the trainee intake in 2013. And there is, of course, an elite within the elite, with trainees hailing from the hallowed halls of Oxford and Cambridge accounting for a hefty proportion of that Russell Group intake. A three-year comparison indicates these proportions have hardly changed.
