Social mobility: will my socioeconomic background impact my chance of securing a training contract?

Dear Oracle

I didn’t go to a selective school, but have good A levels and my ambition is to be a City lawyer – what does this mean for my chances? What are law firms doing to improve the representation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds? 

The Oracle replies

Reading time: four minutes 

Your socioeconomic background shouldn’t prevent you from becoming a solicitor, and many law firms have adapted their recruitment processes to improve access to the profession. 

The latest law firm diversity data from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, collected in 2025, indicates a gradual shift in the educational backgrounds of people working in the profession. The data covers solicitors and other employees working in SRA-regulated firms in England and Wales. 

In 2025, 20% of lawyers working in England and Wales attended an independent/fee-paying school, while 63% of lawyers attended a non-selective state school. In comparison, 23% of lawyers attended an independent/fee-paying school in 2015, while 67% of lawyers attended a non-selective state school. There are still differences at senior levels, with 23% of partners having attended an independent/fee-paying school compared with 18% of solicitors. 

So, although progress has been made, there’s clearly still work to do. What does this mean for you as an aspiring solicitor, and what’s the profession doing to remove some of the barriers candidates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds can face? 

Contextual recruitment 

One significant development has been the increasing use of contextual recruitment. Rather than assessing your academic results in isolation, contextual recruitment enables employers to consider the circumstances in which your achievements were gained. 

For example, upReach’s REALrating has been designed to contextualise academic performance and help employers identify candidates who’ve achieved despite adverse circumstances. It also enables employers to monitor socioeconomic data. 

This means that, depending on the employer and recruitment process, factors relating to your educational and socioeconomic background may provide important context to your achievements, rather than counting against you. 

Read more in this LCN Says by upReach: ‘Demystifying contextual recruitment and how it can benefit you’. 

Improving social mobility in the profession 

There are also numerous initiatives designed to improve access to the legal profession and support aspiring lawyers from less advantaged backgrounds. 

An increasing number of law firms are publicly committing to improving social mobility. In the 2025 Social Mobility Employer Index, 30 law firms appeared among the top 75 employers, including Addleshaw Goddard, Linklaters LLP and Osborne Clarke LLP.  

There’ve also been calls for socioeconomic background to be added as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, although developments have so far been limited. 

The Oracle answers a similar question here: ‘I didn’t attend a Russell Group university, can I still get a training contract?’. 

Social mobility initiatives 

The profession has a range of schemes and organisations working to improve access. 

The 93% Club was founded by Sophie Pender in 2016 to help people from state-educated and lower socioeconomic backgrounds build valuable connections and access opportunities. According to the organisation, 86% of its members have secured their first-choice graduate role, with 506 entering the legal sector between 2022 and 2025.  

The 93% Club also runs the Social Mobility Factory, a careers event designed to connect state-educated students, graduates and professionals with employers and career-development opportunities. 

upReach’s Law Springboard programme, sponsored by Slaughter and May, provides two years of personalised career support. The programme is designed to help students explore career options, improve their employability and broaden their professional networks. 

Other initiatives include PRIMED for Law, an alliance of law firms working to improve access and socioeconomic diversity in the profession, and the Social Mobility Business Partnership, which provides work insight, skills development and ongoing career support to students from lower income backgrounds. 

Your educational background doesn’t define your prospects 

Where you studied shouldn’t stop you engaging with the employers you're interested in. 

Firms vary in where they hold law fairs, presentations and other campus activity, while virtual events and wider outreach initiatives have created additional ways for candidates to interact with employers.  

So, don’t limit yourself to the employers attending your university’s careers fair. Research firms individually and look for other opportunities to meet recruiters and lawyers, including open days, virtual events and careers conferences such as LawCareersNetLIVE. 

What can you do? 

First, research employers carefully. Rather than simply relying on what a firm says about its commitment to social mobility, look at what it’s doing in practice. Its recruitment processes, contextual recruitment measures, work experience programmes, outreach partnerships and published diversity information can all help you understand its approach. 

You should also focus on building relevant experience and being able to explain what you’ve learnt from it. This doesn’t have to mean completing multiple formal legal placements. Part-time work, volunteering, extracurricular activities and positions of responsibility can all provide experiences that help you develop and demonstrate the skills firms are looking for. 

Alongside strong academics, think about how you can demonstrate qualities such as communication, teamwork, commercial awareness, resilience and motivation. When it comes to applications, being able to explain why you want to work for a particular firm, and using your own experiences to demonstrate your suitability, is more important than trying to fit a preconceived idea of what a future solicitor should look like. 

Above all, don’t let your school or socioeconomic background discourage you from pursuing a legal career. Progress towards a more socially diverse profession is ongoing rather than complete, but there are firms, initiatives and recruitment practices designed to widen access and recognise talent from a broader range of backgrounds. 

Target your applications carefully, research what different firms are doing to improve access and make use of the support and opportunities available to you. 

 For more insight into what the legal profession is doing to promote and develop diversity and inclusion, head to LawCareers.Net’s Diversity in law hub. 

Bethany Wren (she/her) is head of content and events at LawCareers.Net.