Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
Honestly no trainee or junior lawyer should work in a small firm. Most of their standards are to sh itty for a junior to start his or her career and you will pick up many bad habits and poor practices.
There are a few good boutique firms founded by able practitioners, but it is rare. The vast majority are mediocre. The poor brand name of a small firm also "taints" your CV for a long time.
All junior doctors start their HO and MO in large public hospitals and not your small neighbourhood GP clinic where they train with the benefit of institutional expertise. The same reason should be applied to starting your career in law.
We should ban small firms (<20 lawyers) from taking on trainees and junior lawyers.
There is a place for small firms in the market (at the price point for less wealthy clients/corporations), but lawyers should only join them at a mid-to senior experienced stage.
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I don't think that this is a good method (equating bigger to better), since alot of lawyers in the bigger firms just ignore (or give the most menial **** to) trainees as they have too many. Some smaller firms give far better training than "Warm Body" teams in b4.
But I get your drift. Perhaps a better alternative would be subjecting law firms/lawyers to training audits or actual training requirements before they are allowed to take on trainees, instead of a blanket PQE requirement. PQE is a meaningless concept, a 3 PQE lawyer might be years ahead of a 10 PQE lawyer.
We should propose to overhaul the training system - before a lawyer can take trainees, they have to prove that:
1. They have (or the law firm can provide) sufficient experience in a variety of fields. This means providing a general description of the work they have undertaken, and the work they expect to undertake.
2. Their average caseload and/or case quantum must exceed x/year.
3. They DO NOT have a history of being reprimanded or censured by the Court or Law Soc.
4. They are willing to provide a monthly report on the work provided to the trainee.
5. They can prove that they have adequate resources to take on trainees after the TC (instead of consistently cycling through trainees as a source of cheap labour).