City of London: Firms should pool their resources
Lack of confidence is the biggest barrier to social mobility in the legal profession, according to one of the founders of the City Solicitors Horizons (CSH) scheme, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this week.
Roger Finbow, a former partner at City firm Ashurst, said things were “moving in the right direction” in the profession in terms of social mobility, but it was going to be a “long, long time before we get a level playing field”.
Over the past decade, CSH has taken over 350 law students from disadvantaged backgrounds through a three-year support programme, including work experience, mentoring and weekly training with large law firms.
Mr Finbow said at least 45% of them had secured training contracts, mainly with City firms.
CSH was launched by the City of London Solicitors Company, City Solicitors Educational Trust and the City of London Law Society in 2015. Sponsors include Ashurst, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, BCLP, Mayer Brown, Cleary Gottlieb and Sullivan & Cromwell.
“Of all the things we instill the most important is confidence,” Mr Finbow said. “Law firms are looking for people who have the confidence to hold their own in front of clients.
“When students come into the scheme, they feel awkward and they are awkward. They’re intellectually bright, but they don’t know how to present themselves verbally or in what they wear.
“A couple of years later they can stand up and speak to a room full of people – it really does bring tears to my eyes. It’s because of the support they’ve had. They can present themselves as well as anyone who went to Eton and Oxford.”
Mr Finbow, who has acted as recruitment partner for Ashurst, said ‘blind’ recruitment practices were useful but did not get law firms “very far in judging whether or not this is a person you want in your law firm”.
Rather than going their own way, law firms could be “much more successful” at improving social mobility by pooling their resources, both in the support that was provided and in the investment made in choosing the right people for the scheme.
Among the activities CSH had provided was going to the Courtauld Institute or the Royal Opera House.
Mr Finbow said a law student came up to him when he was teaching at Essex University and asked him for advice on applying to law firms.
The student was a refugee from Kosovo, who came to the UK as a seven-year-old boy and was the first person in his family to speak English, which meant having to take his parents to medical appointments. He was working at the time as a paralegal in a high street firm in North-West London.
“I gave him a list of 30 City firms to apply to and he got no offers of an interview.” Eventually, with Mr Finbow’s help, he got a training contract.
Mr Finbow said the student, now a senior associate at a large City firm, was offered work experience by his north London secondary school in Tesco or with a plumber.
When he asked about work experience with a law firm, he was told he would have to arrange it himself and “there was no point anyway, because you need to be middle class to be a lawyer”.
Mr Finbow worked for Ashurst for 42 years, joining as a trainee, becoming a partner in 1984 and finishing in 2017 as a non-practising consultant.
As Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk, he said he used his position to “flag wave” for Suffolk Law Centre in Ipswich and encourage City solicitors and barristers with connections in Suffolk to help fund it.
CSH is managed by the education and training charity SEO (Sponsors for Educational Opportunity) London.
Nathalie Richards, chief executive of SEO London, commented: “Looking ahead, we are committed to broadening the range of support from sponsors and to empowering even more talented students from challenging socio-economic backgrounds”.
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