Could it be magic on the high street?

The annual Guardian UK 300 2014 survey was published recently. The survey of more than 27,000 students from 100 universities seeks to find the most popular 300 employers by first asking students what career sector interests them the most then which employer they would like to work for within that sector. Unless you work for a Magic Circle or big hitting commercial law firm in London, you won’t be surprised to know that your firm hasn’t been named a ‘popular top 10’ law firm by emerging law students.

It’s not clear from the results
of the survey what questions students answered when selecting the employer they most wanted to work for, or at what stage of their legal career the students were when they competed the survey. It is also not clear what factors were important to each student when selecting the employer they wanted to work for. Did they pick Allen & Overy because of their brand presence? Was Linklaters chosen because they paid a bigger trainee solicitor salary? Do students think Slaughter & May offers a better quality of work? Although the research techniques of the survey may not be known, the results indicate that the majority of students selected firms with the highest earnings per partner/lawyer with headquarters in London and specialisms in corporate and financial work.

When I first began university as a fresh-faced law student, I often imagined myself as Calista Flockhart in Ally McBeal, pounding the pavements of a big city in my heels, a Starbucks coffee in one hand and a BlackBerry in the other. The idea of working for a multinational commercial firm in London seemed glamorous. There was a perception among law students that you had made it when you worked at a Magic Circle firm, wore a power suit
and earned a fantastic salary. However, as time went on, I realised that a high salary was often directly proportionate to the number of hours worked, affecting a good work/life balance. Factors such as responsibility, firm culture and meaningful work also crept higher up on my list of priorities the more I thought about my training contract application.

From my recollections of law school, there were a select few students who were adamant
that they wanted to work for London-based commercial firms and specialise in banking or real estate and went on to do so. There were others who wanted to work in niche or high-street firms and fight international humanitarian crises or prevent injustice in the criminal courts. Then the rest: the large majority of us who wanted to practice at regional or national firms.

Magic Circle firms offer some fantastic career opportunities for trainee solicitors. However, I am not convinced that this survey represents what the majority of students realistically want or go on to do in their legal careers. There are a number of national, regional and high-street firms in existence that are not represented in this survey that can offer trainee solicitors a challenging and very rewarding legal career. SJ

Laura McIlduff is a serious injury solicitor at Irwin Mitchell and chair of the Junior Lawyers Division North East