A SCOTS solicitors has announced their plans for a trainee recruiment drive – meaning that for many Scottish law students, they will have a chance to gain new skills and experience.
Complete Clarity and Simplicity Legal recently revealed the plan – stressing that they do not have a target number of hired trainees but that candidates fit with its non-traditional and counter-intuitive approach to recruitment will carry significant weight in the process.
The Glasgow-based firm is now looking for a number of trainees in advance of the Strathclyde Law Fair next month.
The age profile of the firm is unusually young, with many staff in their late twenties.
This is due to the firm specialising in hiring diploma students and bringing them on to be legal assistants, then trainees before fully qualifying as solicitors.
Director Billy Smith, who started the firm in 2010 believes that by the time they qualify, the trainees will be as competent as lawyers who have been effectively practising- and having real hands on supported experience in the field- for three to five years.
The firm’s recruitment process, includes holding rigorous assessments and young applicants being given 60 seconds each to answer three questions in front of peers.
The painstaking recruitment process comes after face-to-face meetings and interactions were replaced by video meetings and working from home becoming normal practice.
Court training was also significantly affected.
Complete Clarity Solicitors and Simplicity Legal are firm believers in promotion from within.
This means that there is a smaller number of people who have come through what has been perceived to be the traditional route to a law career via private schooling or a family background in law.
Co-Director, Emma King, said: “Covid and its ongoing ramifications have had a lasting effect on legal training and have placed unprecedented hurdles in the way of the cohort of students which is coming through now.
“In announcing our intention to once again grow the firm’s staff complement, we are sending out a message that there is a place for ambitious, talented people who are ready to join us and take advantage of our different way of doing things.
“We are looking for people who can see things from a different perspective, who are fast, sharp and mentally agile and who know their training with us will be comprehensive and that they will be working with like-minded colleagues.”
The firm now offers services including family law, litigation, guardianship, executries, conveyancing, employment law and commercial litigation.
A recent surge in fee income pushed revenues from £1.1 million last year to £1.5 million by May this year and Smith has a target of £2.5 million by 2025.
