Trainee Retention: The Final Reckoning
05 August 2011
Another raft of firms has told their trainee cohorts what they'll be doing in September. The options being: a cushie NQ position or working the line at their local Job Centre Plus.

There's great news for some. Reynold Porter Chamberlain joins a select group by offering places to all 13 of its trainees (check out who the firm has beaten in RollOnFriday's cumulative results table). Untouchable work.

Freshfields races almost to the top of the Magic Circle (pipped only by Slaughter and May), keeping on 48 out of 50 of its qualifying class. At 96%, that's just a shade over Linklaters' 93% (53 from 57) result.

Next in the MC table comes Clifford Chance, which will be keeping on 43 of its 52 trainees. That's 83%, maths fans. And so with all the Magic Circle results now in the bag, here's how it's looking:

	Trainees	NQs retained	%
Slaughter and May	59	59	100
Freshfields	50	48	96
Linklaters	57	53	93
Clifford Chance	52	43	83
Allen & Overy	53	38	72

Away from the top five, there have been strong results for DLA Piper, retaining a massive 67 of its 77 trainees (90%). Eversheds has also performed strongly, scoring 84% with 33 out of 38 staying put. And only slightly down from the 'Shed comes Bird & Bird, with a pretty decent 81%.

Fruity girls Trainees receiving NQ job offers yesterday

Of course one swallow does not a summer make. And swooping to the bottom of the pack alongside Dickinson Dees comes Mills & Reeve, handing out eight jobs to its 22 qualifiers, an horrific 36%. A spokeswoman for the firm told RollOnFriday that "in common with most law firms, our growth rates have slowed...People enjoy working at Mills & Reeve, which means that fewer of our more senior lawyers leave the firm in any given year than is the case with many of our competitors. This combination of slower growth and loyalty from our other lawyers means that we are only able to offer 8 of our second year trainees positions once they qualify in September. We hope that this will be an unusual year".  So presumably that must mean M&R has only 36% of the work that it had expected when it hired its trainees, which does not sound like great news.

So as the dust settles, what to make of the retention round? Overall, retention is 80%, down 6% from March, but up 2% from this time last year. Check out all the results here.