A feature focusing on trainees being taken advantage of by their firms certainly hit a nerve. From emails and letters received by The Firm the cases we highlighted were not as isolated as we, or the Law Society of Scotland, had hoped. Following up on the issues raised in last month’s article Liz Campbell, Director of Education and Training at the Law Society of Scotland, speaks to The Firm and outlines their approach to tackling these trainee issues.

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Some 632 traineeships were put through by the Law Society last year across Scotland. In the same period, none of those trainees made a formal complaint to the Law Society about their training, their environment, levels of support, or otherwise formally complained of anything that could be justifiably described as abuse.

The Law Society does have a Director of Education and Training, Liz Campbell, into whose brief such matters would go, but she is thankfully kept busy on matters other than the poor treatment of new entrants to the profession, which confirms either that the profession as a whole treats its trainees so well that there is no conduct to be complained of, or alternatively that it does not generate formal complaints for some other reason. The Firm thought we would try to find out which.

The lines of responsibility for poor trainee treatment are unclear. Logically, the training firm and the partners within it have the most direct and obvious role in ensuring the trainee experience is all that it could and should be, and the Law Society - whilst tasked with the role of professional watchdog - can neither read minds nor see through walls. The three parties therefore have a shared role in the trainee experience. The question to be asked is how that balance should be distributed, and to ask whether at the moment, the trainee is sufficiently supported, or is shouldering a great deal of it themselves.

The Firm went to the Law Society to discuss with Campbell the Society’s -and the training & education department’s- role in dealing with trainee abuse as highlighted in the last issue of the Firm.

“It is there as a resource to be used by trainees and individuals who have problems with their traineeships. We always say to students that are coming through their diploma year and going into their traineeships that one of the roles the Law Society will fulfil for them is to be there, to help them and guide them through the process and support them through the good times and the bad times,” she says.

“Of course what we don’t do is take sides. If the trainee has an issue, they can phone and speak to someone within the department -there will always be someone available for trainees- the office is open throughout the day. If they need to phone during their lunch hour they can do that, or if they need to phone after five o’clock someone will be there at the end of the phone for as long as it takes.  We try to get that message out.”

The format of traineeships themselves continues to evolve to meet the changing demands of the profession, and it is an evolving programme, which Campbell says is supported by parallel support for the administration of the traineeships.

“We have a new lawyer’s engagement programme which Colette Paterson is rolling out over a three year period. That is to do with getting to people earlier on and talking about the role of the Law Society and show that we are there to help and guide them through the process. If they have issues with their traineeship, then by all means come to us, but we won’t be saying “You are right; the firm is wrong,” because there are obviously two sides to every story.

“It is not unusual for us to be dealing confidentially with a trainee who may have told us who they are, or not, and also with the firm who may have complained about the trainee, also on a confidential basis, with each side not knowing the other is dealing with us.”

The system as presently enacted requires a trainee to proactively identify themselves, the firm and the individuals responsible for administering poor treatment. The visibility of this method could arguably be discouraging trainees from making their voices heard, preferring instead to wait their two years out rather than rock the boat and risk jeopardising their future prospects. Campbell explains.

“Your article highlighted that we can’t do anything unless the trainee says who they are. It is not that we can’t do anything; we can be a shoulder to cry on, can support and advise and try to guide them through. But if they actually want us to intervene in the specifics about what is going on in their firm, then we can’t do that unless we know who the firm us.

“Some of the suggestions came across as a little bit naïve; that we could have a confidential helpline -which I think we have got- and also that we would do random inspections of firms. We’d need to breach confidentiality to go into specific firms, so those things don’t quite marry up in my mind.

“If somebody wants to do something more, if they want to take it to the next stage, we would need to know specifics - who the firm was, who the trainee was - and that would go to the admissions committee. The firm would be given the opportunity obviously to put their side of things, and that would then be decided by the admissions committee. Before we get to that stage though, we would always ask the trainee if they would like us to speak to the firm. There have been instances when I dealt with issues that came up and I had a word with the partner, and the issue can be resolved. That less formal mechanism is there as well. It is important to emphasise that we can talk through the options, but we can’t say which option they should use.  There may be employment law issues, and they might want to seek employment law advice which they obviously wouldn’t get from the Society.”

Campbell confirms that, whilst the Society offers confidential support, the reality is that for one reason or another, it is uncommon for complaints to be formalised or elevated to the point where any kind of formal intervention is undertaken, or the firm itself or its staff identified.

“It is very rare that that kind of issue comes before the committee. I would say certainly no more than a couple a year, maximum, get to that stage. The admissions committee have the power to refuse a firm permission to take trainees, after due investigation. So obviously we wouldn’t just act on a trainee saying there is something wrong. We’d have to go through that whole process, but I am not aware of any case where we have actually got to that stage and told a firm that they cannot take on a trainee.”

The Society does have a further range of reforms planned which are intended to tighten up the training process, and place responsibility for the training with a designated partner within the firm. Mike Dailly had suggested that there is a role for the Society to undertake inspections -perhaps on a random basis- the threat of which may act as a powerful motivator for firms to ensure they were operating best practice, and this indeed may come to fruition in the medium term.

“We monitor the traineeships, but the proposal in the latest consultation is that we move to the first stage of authorisation of training firms by having a training partner in each firm, and that, on assumption of that role there would be a CPD requirement on that individual to undertake people management-type training. That would need to be voted through by the profession but we have been trailing that as a concept. Our consultation in 2006 and 2007 showed strong support for that,” Campbell advises.

“[Inspections] are a longer term objective.  We need to look very carefully at how we resource that. There is no point in having a system that carries out inspections every four years, for example, because firms will have had two sets of trainees through in that time. It is a medium term aim, but the first stage of that process is to have approval for a training partner. In the next couple of years we will be able to have some way of resourcing more proactivity with firms, and the way we will do that is to say that there will be a greater number of requirements around the traineeship, and rolling outcomes and standards, and the trainees will be measured against them.”
 
“I think there is sometimes an unrealistic expectation of what the Society can do. If somebody comes to us and says ‘I have all of these problems that I need to have resolved, but I don’t want to tell you where I work, don’t want to tell you who the firm are, and the last thing I want you to do is go to speak to the firm about these problems’ then under the present system, there is very little we can do about that.

“If we came up with a system where we went into firms and we talked to the trainee and talked to the trainer, and there was a problem in the traineeship, that might be highlighted by the trainee. The trainee is going to be in exactly the same position as they would have been if they had spoken to us on a named basis under the present system. So I’m not quite sure that we would address the problem in any case. I really don’t know if we would come up with a different solution.”