Bristol Law Not Put On Hold

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Original post

by McGinger

League Table position does not signify 'better' - its just commercialised marketing fluff. And, increasingly, leading law firms are recruiting Uni blind so any ideas you might have had about this are a bit dated.

Look at the league table for magic circle recruitment 😂😂😂 I rest my case

Reply 21

olwen.cb

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Original post

by maniac2007

Predicted grades
LNAT score
Contextual or non contextual

I'm non-contextual international, predicted 39 766 in IB, LNAT score of 30. Hope that helps!

Reply 22

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Original post

by maniac2007

Look at the league table for magic circle recruitment 😂😂😂 I rest my case

You don't have a case. Law firms pay no attention to league tables.

Reply 23

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Original post

by Stiffy Byng

You don't have a case. Law firms pay no attention to league tables.

They make the league tables 😂😂😂 the only table that matters .. which university brand gives you the best chance at a magic circle placement … that’s the only league table that drives the law ladder

Reply 24

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Original post

by maniac2007

They make the league tables 😂😂😂 the only table that matters .. which university brand gives you the best chance at a magic circle placement … that’s the only league table that drives the law ladder

Can you send a link to that league table, please, as I can't seem to find it. You know, the one you say shows the order in which the Magic Circle recruit from?

Reply 25

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Original post

by chalks

Can you send a link to that league table, please, as I can't seem to find it. You know, the one you say shows the order in which the Magic Circle recruit from?

Reply 26

Universities Forum Helper

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Original post

by maniac2007

Thanks: can you send a link to the source, please?

I think you're referencing Chambers Student's research from 2018/2019 and that graph doesn't show the Magic Circle.

Reply 27

Admit-One

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Original post

by chalks

Thanks: can you send a link to the source, please?

I think you're referencing Chambers Student's research from 2018/2019 and that graph doesn't show the Magic Circle.

It's from here I believe. It doesn't establish any causal link, (no surprise that well motivated and ambitious candidates tend to go to higher ranking unis and do well afterwards), and I think the 'What does this mean' / conclusion sections are fairly clear in what they are spelling out.

https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities

Reply 28

14

Actually, what that graph shows is (i) some underlying data from Chambers' 2016 report and (ii) the spread of respondents from the different universities surveyed. In other words, when Chambers interviewed students between 2013 and 2015 this is the distribution of where those students had studied - it doesn't show anything else.

Chambers published an updated report in 2019, based on research across 2016 to 2018, but none of that research purports to be a "league table" of Magic Circle firms' university preferences.

Reply 29

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Original post

by maniac2007

They make the league tables 😂😂😂 the only table that matters .. which university brand gives you the best chance at a magic circle placement … that’s the only league table that drives the law ladder

You are mistaken. University-blind recruitment is increasingly the norm, and in any event league tables are of no relevance to recruiting decisions. How many recruitment decisions for law firms have you made? I suspect that the answer is none.

Reply 30

14

I posted about this Chambers' research on another thread somewhere and would heavily caution against using it as the basis for making specific university choices.

The research is interesting and generally supports the premise that students from "good" universities are relatively successful in securing training contracts with "good" law firms. So, no surprise there. The danger comes in trying to reach definitive, granular conclusions about the relative merits of one university over another based on that research.

A few general thoughts:

•

The research is a little old, being based on interviews across 2016 to 2018 leading to the report in 2019. Whilst not much has likely changed with the universities themselves in the intervening period, law firms recruitment processes have adapted including, as @Stiffy Byng notes, the increasing prevalence of recruiting "blind".

•

The cohort of interview respondents is relatively large, but is still only c. 800 or so per year. That's around 15% of the total number of trainees per year.

•

Some of the graphs are unclear. For example, the graph showing the City firms indicates that Oxford is "11.3%": does that mean that 11.3% of their Oxford interviewees were at City firms, or that they have extrapolated their research to suggest that 11.3% of all City trainees went to Oxford?

•

There is no meaningful analysis of which universities feed the Magic Circle, nor could there be unless those firms disclosed all their trainee information or if someone wanted to spend countless hours trawling LinkedIn profiles.

•

It's unclear, from the published methodology, how Chambers approached and interviewed trainees. They talk about 139 participating firms, but it isn't clear whether the interview sample groups from those firms was in proportion to the size of those firms' trainee cohorts. Without knowing more about the methodology, there is a risk that the data is skewed. If, for example, they interviewed 50 trainees from CC but only 1 from CMS, then there is a strong likelihood that the data will lead to certain conclusions.

So, what conclusions can you draw? It seems clear that, based on their research for over decade, there is a prevalence of Russell Group/Oxbridge grads at City law firms (including the Magic Circle). I don't think that's groundbreaking news. What is dangerous is to rely on the research to suggest that Bristol is "better" than Manchester, or "worse" than Durham, or any variety of comparisons like that. There are too many variables in the research itself, an individual's own experience/abilities and the current approach of the recruiting firms. To suggest otherwise is naive, disingenuous and/or misleading.

Reply 31

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Original post

by Stiffy Byng

You are mistaken. University-blind recruitment is increasingly the norm, and in any event league tables are of no relevance to recruiting decisions. How many recruitment decisions for law firms have you made? I suspect that the answer is none.

Course it is 😂😂😂

Reply 32

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Original post

by maniac2007

Course it is 😂😂😂

If you are suggesting that university-blind recruitment is not becoming the norm, that is for you to prove. Do you have any first hand experience of recruitment decisions by law firms?

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 33

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Original post

by maniac2007

Course it is 😂😂😂

You realise your suggestion is circular/self-fulfilling?

You seem to suggest that City firms rely on these "league tables" to guide their recruitment policies. Yet the research just indicates where, in the past, a certain percentage of grads have ended up. The research doesn't purport to assess the raw quality of the universities: it just captures data as to where some grads went between 2016 and 2018. In other words, it just shows what the firms themselves have done. It doesn't give those firms up to date, independent analysis of the purported quality of the universities (however you might try and do that).

If you think about it, it would be crazy for firms to use this historical data to guide their future approach: "Oh, look, the old data shows firms like ours took grads from Nottingham and Durham over Newcastle: best we keep doing that then". It would be no different to a firm basing its lateral hiring policies at an associate or partner level based on what they did in the past, having no regard to the current market or competitor strength: "Back in 2017, our own data shows we had great success in recruiting out of Berwin Leighton Paisner - let's do the same now. What do you mean they've since merged and profitability has gone down the toilet?"

Firms will be acutely aware that "Past performance does not guarantee future results" and adapt their recruitment accordingly. In an uber competitive recruitment market, it would be overly simplistic for them to simply look at this data as anything other than a snapshot of the past.

Reply 34

19

Your position is self contradictory and absurd. You confrm that league tables are irrelevant to recruitment.

I have first hand experience of legal recruitment in London. University-blind recruitment is now commonplace in law firms and in barristers' chambers.

Reply 35

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Original post

by maniac2007

it’s based on my mother and father being managing partners in one of the city’s largest global law firms, they don’t look at league tables their firm and others like them drive the only table that matters
“Which universities have to most legal pupils and placements in the circle”
Nothing else matters, and if people believe that they are blind selecting then people are deluded
Utterly deluded

So many things to pick out here.

I was a lawyer for many years, and currently co-run a legal headhunting consultancy focusing on partner moves in the City, Europe and the US.

I'm not aware of any global firm that has a husband and wife as co-MPs, nor could I imagine any firm having that management structure given the massive conflicts that would arise. Which one is it? If you don't want to disclose the actual firm, then perhaps give some indications of where it has offices, its practice area strengths etc? Perhaps indicate which areas your parents practice in? Otherwise, I suspect this is a fib.

What do these sentences mean: "they don’t look at league tables their firm and others like them drive the only table that matters" and "which universities have to most legal pupils and placements in the circle”. What do you mean by "pupils and placements"? What "circle"?

Reply 36

Universities Forum Helper

19

I have been knocking around the London commercial legal scene since the 1980s. I have never heard of any major law firm which has a husband and wife as joint managing partners. If such a firm exists, perhaps the poster's parents are so busy that they have forgotten to teach him or her how to engage in civilised discussion.

Reply 37

Admit-One

21

It is always a dilemma whether to take the word of an AL student who is still in the undergrad application process, or multiple people with years of hands-on experience recruiting within the sector.

Reply 38