The future is bright

I have just taken on my first legal apprentice. I have had many trainees (and even articled clerks when they still existed), paralegals, trainee-legal executives, interns and work placements, but this is the first time that I have dipped my toe into Lake Apprentice.

The scheme has been loudly trumpeted by the government and on the face of it sounded like a rather good addition to those working in my team.

Essentially the deal is that you approach the apprentice-providing organization - in my case a local sixth-form college - and they select suitable candidates after having popped in to see you and discussed the nature of the vacancy, seen what your organisation is doing and (importantly) checked to see you have a safe system of work.

I was given three people to interview and all were of a very high standard, with excellent GCSE and A-level results. They ?were all keen to break into ?a legal career.

The successful candidate has just completed her first month with me and has been mustard keen. She has been closely watched over by her colleagues who have come in to see her and she will have a few days off for face-to-face learning. I get a chunk of money from the government (I think £1,500 but this may increase to £3,000) ?for taking this plunge into ?the unknown.

Technically I am only supposed to pay just under £3.00 an hour to an apprentice but that is just too stingy, so I have doubled that much to the delight of the apprentice who has been doing all the sort of things an office junior might do. We are training her to attend court with counsel, prepare trial bundles and give some much needed assistance to our extremely busy reception.

All of this is extremely exciting for an 18-year-old who has never worked in this sort of office environment before.

Not only does she start a career with a very bright trajectory but she has no student debt, no wretched exams to worry about and the respect of her peer group. Her work is monitored and she has to keep a diary and portfolio of the work she is doing.

At the end of a year she will have a qualification and if she has been successful I will want to sign her up for ILEX. One day she may qualify as a solicitor. So is this a backlash against a university education? Will we be seeing a great many more entrants to the profession via this route? Certainly the level of student and LPC debt that prospective trainees are now incurring is mind-boggling. It cannot be reasonable to expect students to begin their professional career owing something in the region of £50,000 in various debts.

I wish my new legal apprentice the best of luck - I think her future is very bright. And to my relief she does like the office labrador! SJ