City firms have Oxbridge quotas

According to the Law Society's new diversity chief, top City firms have informal quotas in place regarding the proportion of intakes which should be composed of Oxbridge grads.

Caroline Newham first learned of the bias while training at SJ Berwin. In their case, HR had a target of 40% Oxbridge, passed down from senior partners.

Now, we all know City firms hire a lot of Oxbridge grads on (supposedly) good grounds. I myself never begrudged the numbers of Oxbridge grads at these firms - when looking for the best talent (and strong academics), you're going to end up with a lot of Oxbridge grads. But the idea of a quota is, if not surprising, unexpected.

http://www.legalcheek.com/2015/03/law-firms-run-oxbridge-recruitment-targets-as-high-as-50-of-trainees-says-diversity-chief/

(On the topic of diversity, the article contains a fairly shocking anecdote of Newham's treatment as a black woman at SJ Berwin when she was training)

Reply 1

Le Nombre

Surely if you're at SJ Berwin's rank in the pecking order an Oxbridge quota of 40% is consigning yourself to a lot of Oxbridge grads ill suited to being City lawyers? There's an awful lot out of talent been taken out of a shallow pool by the time those firms are getting a look in.

Ours doesn't recruit outside Oxbridge much, as the American partners haven't heard of anywhere else and there aren't enough trainees to bother investing big amounts into recruitment, although this is gradually changing, but similar attitudes at firms where London is the main event seems daft.