Apprenticeships in the legal sector – are they a good idea? How have they impacted the industry and are they a poor cousin to the traditional university route? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
Jarred Consulting founder Kerry Jarred spoke to Clare Grant, Commercial Director at legal training provider BPP to get the lowdown.
‘Legal sector apprenticeships have been around for about nine or ten years now.’ Clare says. ‘They started relatively slowly but they’ve increased in pace with a lot of bigger players coming on board’.
This is her insight on why they’re becoming an increasingly attractive option.
- There is greater scope for recruiting internally instead of externally thereby reducing costs and plugging skills gaps to facilitate efficient career frameworks.
- Encouraging lateral movement allows the employer to key into the employee’s existing and natural knowledge of the company, sector and clients – putting them at significant advantage.
- Having a wider social impact, the apprenticeship pathway lends itself to greater DEI accessing talent that they may not have otherwise been able to engage.
- It’s becoming the course of choice for many employers because they can recruit talent earlier, straight out of school with greater scope for developing their workforce in-house.
- Young people can enter the workforce at a younger age as school leavers.
- They’re earning from day one.
- There are no university fees to pay which has huge implications for their families and student debt.
- Until they’re ready to leave, young people can stay at home where they’ll receive the financial and emotional support they need to excel – without costly university accommodation to pay for.
- Learning is embedded in practical hands-on work with the clients. This is an advantage when it comes to the SQE and SMEs.
- There is more hands-on supervision. ‘All learners have to have a line manager to make sure they’re progressing,’ Clare explains. ‘There is less of this in a university programme so you need to ask how good you are at self-study.’
The legal sector apprenticeship comes with its challenges too. To read about these and to take a deeper dive into the points above, catch up with the full conversation in the Think Tank this month.
To listen to the conversation in full, check out the ReImagine Law podcast episode here.
