Farrer & Co LLP is due to welcome its first cohort of solicitor apprentices in Autumn 2022, with The University of Law selected by the firm to deliver the academic programme aspect of the apprenticeship.

Every two years the Solicitors Regulation Authority collects diversity information relating to education, age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality.

While the number of solicitors who went to state school is on the rise, those who went to fee-paying schools are continuing to dominate corporate work.

CILEX has launched a new five-year strategy aimed at increasing recognition for CILEX Lawyers, supporting regulatory reform and widening access to the legal profession.

It’s Easter, and that means late-morning starts and excessive consumption. However, we would suggest that you intersperse the indulgence of the holidays with a level of interest in the big commercial news stories. As a reference point, here is our selection from last week.

Uncertainty over Brexit continues as MPs work furiously to find a way forward in Parliament. But as Brexit seems to exclude almost all other matters from the national debate, the world of business keeps on moving.

Judges have condemned the government’s treatment of immigration detainees in a report that is highly critical of inflexible Home Office rules and target-obsessed officials. 

The government should rethink plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a UK bill of rights, a cross-party parliamentary committee has warned.

Global law firms Ropes & Gray and Sidley Austin have retained 100% of their trainees.

Deloitte Legal has entered a strategic partnership with legal AI platform Legora in the UK to accelerate the transformation of legal services. The collaboration, announced on 8 September, aims to reshape how legal teams operate by implementing AI-driven solutions that go beyond task-based productivity gains and into full-service redesign.  

Baker & McKenzie and Hogan Lovells are the first two firms to plan to integrate a new contextual recruitment tool in their online application systems, in time for the 2015-16 graduate recruitment season.

The Law Society has called for further investment into the justice system – especially civil and criminal legal aid, which wasn’t mentioned in the recent autumn budget. The Law Society President Richard Atkinson said: “The message that the Lord Chancellor should be hearing is spend to save.”

From my experience in the workplace and studying, the big city firms are everywhere. We

With the Solicitors Qualifying Exam, the legal profession has embraced a more flexible and practical route to qualification. A key part of this is qualifying work experience (QWE) – a requirement that allows aspiring solicitors to gain real-world legal experience in a variety of settings.

A review by High Court Judge Sir Brian Leveson could mean that jury trials are overhauled for some criminal cases and replaced by the creation of “intermediate courts”. 

There has been much in the press recently about the rise of China as an economy. What does this mean for commercial law firms and their clients?

The American Bar Association has created a task force to address how artificial intelligence (AI) will affect legal practice, with a focus on six “critical” issues, including AI and legal education, and AI and access to justice.