New talent pathways

Attract­ing and retain­ing the best peo­ple is a top pri­or­i­ty for organ­i­sa­tions, and in tra­di­tion­al sec­tors such as law, this has meant tak­ing a fresh approach to recruit­ing and devel­op­ing future tal­ent.

Pio­neer­ing this tal­ent acqui­si­tion rev­o­lu­tion is cor­po­rate law firm Addle­shaw God­dard, whose approach has been to cre­ate new routes into the firm that pre­vi­ous­ly didn’t exist. These include appren­tice­ships, for those inter­est­ed in a legal career who didn’t think one was pos­si­ble, and new path­ways for women who left law careers to have fam­i­lies and sub­se­quent­ly strug­gled to return.

Mike Pot­ter is head of Addle­shaw Goddard’s Trans­ac­tion Ser­vices Team (TST) of para­le­gals, man­agers and appren­tices that has been the cat­a­lyst for the new tal­ent pipeline. He says: “If we want to increase our tal­ent pool we need addi­tion­al path­ways bring­ing peo­ple from diverse back­grounds into the pro­fes­sion. Our approach is prov­ing huge­ly ben­e­fi­cial, both for the indi­vid­u­als and the firm.”

A key mile­stone was the launch of a legal appren­tice­ship pro­gramme in 2013 as an attrac­tive alter­na­tive to uni­ver­si­ty for tal­ent­ed young peo­ple who want a career in law via a voca­tion­al train­ing route. To date 22 appren­tices have joined the TST, with the first group of ten qual­i­fy­ing last year. One of them is Jamie- Lee Har­ris. At col­lege she was unsure about her career plans, but as she watched her fel­low stu­dents head to uni­ver­si­ty she had no desire to join them. Among the var­i­ous career options she con­sid­ered were appren­tice­ships.

She says: “I specif­i­cal­ly looked at law appren­tice­ships, and while most were busi­ness and admin focused Addle­shaw Goddard’s pro­gramme focused much more on the legal side.”

Through­out the two-year pro­gramme Jamie-Lee gained valu­able expe­ri­ence in var­i­ous divi­sions with­in the firm, includ­ing help­ing with prepa­ra­tions for a major case. Since com­plet­ing her
appren­tice­ship she has joined the TST’s new­ly formed tech­nol­o­gy team, look­ing at mak­ing best use out of exist­ing and new tech­nolo­gies. In this role she has per­formed at a very high lev­el, host­ing meet­ings with a key client, with­out the pres­ence of oth­er lawyers.

My appren­tice­ship and my cur­rent role have pro­vid­ed amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that I would­n’t have had else­where… I love what I’m doing and my prospects with the firm are excel­lent

“My appren­tice­ship and my cur­rent role have pro­vid­ed amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that I wouldn’t have had else­where. I have friends who’ve grad­u­at­ed from uni­ver­si­ty, strug­gled to find jobs, and have a lot of stu­dent debt. I have had none of that. I love what I’m doing and my prospects with the firm are excel­lent.”

[embed_related]

Mar­cus Lunt also com­plet­ed his appren­tice­ship last year. He also found the tra­di­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty route, with the fees and time with­out a salary, sim­i­lar­ly off-putting. “The route I’ve cho­sen min­imis­es the cost of train­ing and the time to start earn­ing, whilst giv­ing me recog­nised qual­i­fi­ca­tions and hands-on expe­ri­ence. This is a win-win sit­u­a­tion in my eyes,” he says.

The first cohort of grad­u­ate appren­tices from Addle­shaw God­dard

Addle­shaw God­dard is achiev­ing impres­sive results in facil­i­tat­ing a return to law for women who’ve been away for sev­er­al years. Through their inno­v­a­tive Return­er Pro­gramme, they can re-expe­ri­ence life in a com­mer­cial law firm, build their net­work, and devel­op new skills. For Sue Ben­tham, who had spent 22 years away from the legal pro­fes­sion to raise her fam­i­ly and was keen to return, it sign­post­ed her to the route back in that she had been look­ing for.

She says: “After attend­ing the pro­gramme, the firm con­tact­ed me to ask if I was inter­est­ed in explor­ing a dif­fer­ent career path with­in the TST. I was and I joined as an asso­ciate last year. It has
giv­en me a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to build up my legal knowl­edge, devel­op and use new skills, and work with young peo­ple, help­ing them become bet­ter para­le­gals. The move has also done my con­fi­dence a pow­er of good.”

This expan­sion of routes into the legal pro­fes­sion is some­thing that Addle­shaw God­dard is devel­op­ing fur­ther by recruit­ing appren­tices into the busi­ness ser­vices team.

Mike Pot­ter says: “Our fresh approach to recruit­ment and the devel­op­ment of tal­ent has worked very well for us, and we see that con­tin­u­ing, not just across our firm, but the pro­fes­sion as well. It is excit­ing to see peo­ple join our team, what­ev­er their back­ground, and gain the skills and expe­ri­ence that are high­ly sought in a chang­ing legal pro­fes­sion and enable them to advance their careers in our team.”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­sult our web­site addleshawgoddard.com