Eversheds Sutherland: Internal demand for more apprentices
Seven apprentices at the first large law firm to run the training scheme – which takes six years and includes a law degree – have qualified as solicitors.
Catherine Knight, senior emerging talent manager at Eversheds Sutherland, said there were calls within the firm to take on more of the “very popular” apprentices.
When Eversheds launched its solicitor apprenticeship scheme back in March 2016, the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) was still the subject of consultation with the profession and would not be finally approved by the Legal Services Board for another four years.
Former apprentice Beth Walters, now an associate with Eversheds in Birmingham, said she was a member of the first group of candidates to sit the first part of the SQE in November 2021.
Ms Walters said she found preparing for the exam “very challenging” because it was the first sitting, and there was no certainty over the benchmarks and the pass rate. However, the apprentices had an advantage in that they were used to studying while working.
Ms Walters said SQE 2, which she took in April 2022, was a different experience because the apprentices’ practical experience and skills “equipped us very well”.
This was shown by the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s statistics, which said that the small cohort of apprentices performed well above average.
Ms Knight said the law firm relied very heavily on its course provider, BPP University, for the first sitting of the SQE, when people were “nervous of the unknown” and there were no past exam papers to use for preparation.
The number of solicitor apprentices recruited by Eversheds had stayed the same over the past six years, at a maximum of 10 per year, with a total of 54 recruited so far. This compares with around 40-50 trainee solicitors recruited every year.
Ms Knight said competition for both forms of training was equally high, with 400 applications for the apprenticeship places this year, compared to around 2,000 for traineeships.
Retention rates for solicitor apprentices were “very high”, with only one of the original intake of eight in 2016 failing to qualify as a solicitor this year.
Ms Knight said the apprentices were “very popular” internally, leading to comments that the firm should increase the intake.
However, Eversheds wanted to “see how the first few years of qualifying turned out”, because demand was “difficult to predict”, particularly over so long a period, and the priority was to ensure that there were “enough newly-qualified roles for everybody”.
Ms Walters said the main advantage of being an apprentice was the “sheer level of practical and legal experience you gain” at a young age. For the first four years, she worked in the real estate department of Eversheds in Birmingham.
“You’re working from the age of 18 on client cases, working really closely with members of the team and attending large client meetings before you even start on your final four seats.”
For the last two years, Ms Walters followed a similar pattern to the trainee solicitors, with seats in construction, real estate litigation, commercial development and a six-month secondment to a major house builder.
She said that, if solicitor apprenticeships had not been available, she would have done a law degree at university, but, because of her limited means, it would have been funded by loans.
Solicitor apprentices at Eversheds are paid £20,000 in their first year, or £23,000 in London. In their final two years, they are paid at the trainee solicitor rates of £31,000 in the first year and £33,000 in the second, or £44,000 and £48,000 in London.
Ms Knight added that being a solicitor apprentice was a “fantastic route”, but it required a “huge commitment” and was “by no means easier” than being a trainee.
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