magic circle law firms' preferred universities

Participating firms represent the more competitive half of the market: combined their trainee vacancies amount to over 2,500, which is over half all trainee positions going each year. A natural target for go-getters London may be, but theres a mutual attraction going on. Imperial College, meanwhile, concentrates heavily on science and technology subjects and so naturally features less prominently. . For instance, Freshfields and Allen & Overy now enjoy local rankings in California, a fiercely contested market traditionally dominated by homegrown firms. If, for example, you have mitigating circumstances which have affected your academic performance, a firm will take these into consideration during the application process. The London universities LSE, UCL and King's continued to perform well here, while Nottingham lost the dominance it maintained in the other London categories. No surprises here. Fladgate, Bristows, Simkins, Regional defines a firm that, you guessed it, has offices inregions that arent London, and a head office thats also somewhere not-London. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. E.g. It does not store any personal data. Thankfully many of the most elite firms are focusing much energy on addressing this bias, with programmes like contextual recruiting, and unconscious bias and diversity training. The trope explained above that in the eyes of the more prestige-obsessed graduate, London is the be-all and end-all is visible here. Almost a third of lawyers at the UK's elite Magic Circle law firms attended Oxford or Cambridge universities, new data published today shows. Take our new Which Magic Circle Law Firm is Right For Me? The Russell Group (including Oxbridge) supplied 76.5% of trainee lawyers. The graph above implies theres a difference in average earnings between law and non-law grads, so we crunched the numbers and found this: the average NQ salary for non-law students is 72,551, 6% higher than the average NQ salary earned by law grads: 68,406. That seems big and it is but its down 5% from our previous survey of the years 2013-2015, although over nine years weve witnessed a 3% drop in the Russell Groups dominance. This feature was first published in February 2016, Read our True Picture review of 130 top law firms, The school background of trainee solicitors. The term was coined in the 1990s by The Lawyer magazine and is based on the quintets close relationship with the Citys leading banks and stranglehold on the best corporate finance work. As firms recruit on a case to case basis, and are keen to make entering law as accessible as possible, the . TSR Decisions Drop In 17th April - 5th May. They are the five UK-based firms considered to be amongst the most prestigious in the world. E.g. And then the drop off after 2016 coincided with changes to student visas in the UK that made it more difficult to be an international student doing the LPC. All some of the top lawyers working for their respective law firms. The majority of our trainee interviewees 81.4% hailed from a Russell Group university. The highly esteemed quintet are renowned for their pedigree in the most complex and high- profile mandates for the most significant clients, their outstanding financial performance and the highly impressive number of individual lawyers working across a multitude of practice areas offered. [citation needed] As firms recruit on a case to case basis, and are keen to make entering law as accessible as possible, the university you attend does not impact your application as long as you meet the rest of the criteria for that firm. Linklaters. The Magic Circle includes Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters and Slaughter and May. There are grads from Oxbridge, Durham, Nottingham, Brum, Cardiff, Bristol, Leeds, UCL, LSE, Kings, Sheffield, York, Newcastle, Exeter and tons more from different universities within the UK working at top law firms. The Russell Group dominates the market at 81.4%. They can give you all the details you need about course fees, funding options and more. Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences. At these firms, we spoke to graduates of 68 universities. All of the 'Magic Circle' law firms and barristers' chambers specialise primarily in corporate law. This will skew the results in favour of the larger, less specialist institutions. We rarely encountered overseas graduates at the regional firms we researched. What do they look for in Freshfields training contract candidates? This study will point to issues about social mobility in the law. Its all about the grades, we hear and, rightly, firms conceal their preferences for certain universities. Our graph below makes no distinction between UK and non-UK citizens. For those in their first-year of uni, now is the time to start thinking about getting . The link between prestigious institutions and prestigious careers is difficult to challenge. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. And how can you get to work for them? The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. Prestigious law firms lock their gaze on graduates from these prestigious universities, knowing they dont have to look far for the brightest and most driven candidates. The Super Boutique law firms comprise Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Sullivan & Cromwell; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Slaughter and May; and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Is Linklaters the law firm for you? 'You should be on track for, or have obtained, a 2:1 degree minimum.' King's College London A102 GEM 2023 Entry. [1] In 1996, Stephenson Harwood was asked to leave the Club of Nine due to its stagnant performance, and the Club was disbanded in 2000. US firms in London had the highest percentage of Oxbridge and overseas graduates in the entire survey. This cookie is set by Youtube. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Choosing a University Other Things to Consider. While Magic Circle firms have long been considered fixtures of the US legal market since opening their doors in New York almost half a century ago, the recent glut of hiring and lateral expansion can be seen as an acceleration of these firms' attempts to crack the US market in a much bigger and more eye-catching way. One magic circle interviewee was a single mum with two kids and had graduated through the Open University. It really isn't about uni, firms want to distance themselves from the oxbridge stereotype and simply want the best candidates regardless of who is awarding your degree I dont think its going to gain power or momentum and I dont think its a strengthening brand in itself." Each trainee told us where they completed their undergraduate degrees. This is no surprise given the dominance of the duo in academia. The research shows 76 per cent of trainee lawyers at . The other vital ingredient is to make good decisions at every stage, and that where we come in: use our guidance and market intelligence to help you understand where youd find your niche in this giant profession. The more that firms adopt techniques like CV blind interviewing, the more pressure there'll be across the industry to broaden recruitment and adhere to new standards. US is pretty obvious except in cases where there was a transatlantic merger; wed still consider Hogan Lovells, NRF and BCLP City firms because of their strong London origins. As a result, there are certain universities that you won't find mentioned here (such as Wolverhampton, Glamorgan, Birmingham City etc..) Their absence doesn't mean that these universities failed to produce any trainees in three years just that we didn't encounter any in our interviews. Clifford Chance, headquartered in London, is one of the world's largest law firms, both by size and revenue. Since employability is a factor in a universitys prestige, this is a convenient relationship for both the firms and the universities, so its hard to break. The Times, historically the newspaper best-read among members of the legal profession, reports today that Macfarlanes has become the first City law firm outside the so-called Magic Circle to pay . Indeed, before its launch in the Silicon Valley, Freshfields' East Coast hires included the attention-grabbing addition of Ethan Klingsberg, a highly rated M&A partner from Cleary Gottlieb, and Willkie Farr securities litigator Mary Eaton, both of whom are ranked in the Chambers USA 2021 Guide, as well as adding employee benefits expert Lori Goodman from Latham & Watkins and hiring antitrust duo Meghan Rissmiller from Hogan Lovells and Julie Elmer from the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. Firms are increasingly employing a more holistic approach to each application, meaning that they will consider applications from a range of candidates on an individual basis. from the 139 firms featured in our guide since 2010. The term has also been used to describe the most prestigious barristers' chambers in London. Could someone read this and share their thoughts and corrections? It argued that Clifford Chances profitability does not match the other Magic Circle firms, and that Slaughter and May operates a different (UK-focused) model, with revenue less than half of the other Magic Circle firms. If you're currently studying at a Russell Group university, bear in mind what we've just mentioned above. Will taking Further Maths as a third subject be a disadvantage to apply for uni? We wouldnt recommend making life choices based only on these figures, though. Boost your law career for free. LLM? These results mostly relate to the larger commercial firms that take part in our guide. With this intriguing, informal nickname comes an increasingly high reputation; described by The Guardian writer Laura Paddison, theyre the firms that promise top graduates a glittering name on their CV, A-list corporate clients and excellent training. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile. At these firms, we spoke to graduates of 36 universities. To grasp these nuances, let's take a closer look at these distinct areas. In comparison to the overall picture of London, the top end of the market held a higher proportion of Oxbridge graduates; a similar amount from the remaining Russell Group universities; and fewer trainees from other UK institutions. With this mass of responses we crunched the numbers to reveal which universities funnel the most trainees into the market and what segment of the market. Privacy Policy of each partner law school I have selected above. Kings - English law and French law degree, Law Applicants 2023 entry - discussion thread, HKU-UCL, KCL-CUHK, Exeter-CUHK Law interviews, Cambridge Sixth Form Law Conference 2023 (CSFLC). The __gads cookie, set by Google, is stored under DoubleClick domain and tracks the number of times users see an advert, measures the success of the campaign and calculates its revenue. Russel Group universities were strongly represented, accounting for 81.4% of trainee interviewees, with 5.3% having studied at the University of Bristol . With law firms starting to become more open minded about university background, we're hoping that the next time we crunch our numbers well see a greater number of universities represented. It may be time to reconsider the way we define and consider the so-called Magic Circle of elite U.K. firms. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. If youre looking for firsthand interview tips from a Magic Circle partner, make sure to look at our blog post 12 Pro Interview Tips from a Magic Circle Partner with all the practical advice you need to have your best interview yet! This group fragmented at the beginning of the 2000s, and now comprises the five that now make up the Magic Circle, a term coined by legal journalists. Initially, the Magic Circle's membership was described by commentators as comprising the UK firms with strong corporate practices or international work. Wondering what the salary is like for a Magic Circle trainee? Almost half a century since crossing the Atlantic and opening in New York in 1977, leading law firm Freshfields announced the launch of its first California office in late 2020, hiring a multidisciplinary team from local firms and transferring two attorneys from Brussels and New York. You'll be familiar with this declaration from poring over law firms' grad recruitment pages. You'll notice that the Midlands and Northern-based Russell Group universities did particularly well here. If you've got legal ambitions, our partner, The University of Law, has the right event for you. Even the top law firms do not specify attending a particular university, or particular group of universities in their application process. [12] These firms have a lower turnover than the members of the Magic Circle, but consistently have an average profits per equity partner (PEP) and average revenue per lawyer (RPL) far above the UK average[13][14][15] (and, in some instances, higher than members of the Magic Circle). Copyright The Student Room 2023 all rights reserved. Subscribe to the City A.M. newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. We then combined this with our data all the way back to 2010, when most of the current. Pay at the top US firms can outstrip the Magic Circle with leading firms such as Kirkland & Ellis and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy paying first-year lawyers up to $190,000 (151,000). Sal Francis Morton, senior research analyst at Chambers Student Guide, said: Law firms lock their gaze on graduates from these prestigious universities, knowing they dont have to look far for the brightest and most driven candidates. The Magic Circle is an informal term describing the five most prestigious London-headquartered multinational law firms, which generally outperform the rest of the London law firms on profitability. Find more on our methodology, plus a few disclaimers at the bottom of this page. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Allen & Overy. Guys, do you prefer to be called hot or handsome? Also, at the time the term was coined, the corporate practice at Herbert Smith (as it was known pre-merger) was focused on privatisation work, which had dried up. The Global Elite law firms comprise Allen & Overy; Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Clifford Chance; Davis Polk & Wardwell; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Herbert Smith Freehills; Kirkland & Ellis; White & Case; Latham & Watkins; Linklaters; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Sidley Austin; and Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Furthermore, given some suggestions that Clifford Chance and Linklaters will follow their compatriots' lead in stateside expansion, alongside the novel options for local hiring and remote work in the post-pandemic world, it appears that this trend will only continue going forwards. But this is the UK, where judging people on their university is pretty much mandatory in the legal profession especially. Submit. Other firms have since followed suit, in a bid to help remove bias from the process and allow recruiters to focus solely on an individual's qualities and responses. Oxbridge grads make up a quarter of London trainees and a fifth of all trainees. The first City law firm to establish a presence in Hong Kong; The only law firm to have been involved in almost every aspect of the UK financial crisis; Law Work Experience: Your Guide to Success, Pupillage: a Guide for Aspiring Barristers, Freshfields Graduate Recruitment: Law Training Contracts, Which Magic Circle Law Firm is Right For Me? This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. Visit the guide page below for more information. [20], The following barristers' chambers in the United Kingdom are occasionally, by analogy, described by commentators as the Bar's Magic Circle:[21][2], In August 2018, research from The Lawyer, however, showed that South Square Chambers received more instructions from the Magic Circle law firms than any other chambers. Sign up for our newsletter to boost your commercial awareness. There is a 25% difference with regard to Revenue Per Lawyer. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Our interviewees came from a total of 88 universities over the past three years. That said, some US firms are more comfortably positioned here, so they hire less aggressively and are less closed off to students outside of the Russell Group: our trainee interviewees in this category had attended universities such as Kingston, Leeds Beckett*, Aberystwyth and Bangor.

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