BLP has revealed a mediocre 67% trainee retention rate, and says it will not divulge how many offers it made.

The firm is keeping on 16 of its 24 qualifying trainees this autumn. It represents the latest in a string of drab retention rates from BLP, which gave NQ positions to just 55% of its March intake and hasn't cracked 80% since 2014.

In Spring 2015 it manipulated its figures to obscure a 61% rate. It isn't doing that anymore, but to add some much unneeded mystery it has stopped disclosing the number of NQ offers which it makes. A spokeswoman declined to tell RollOnFriday its reasons for the policy change, but presumably HR is shy about lots of trainees rejecting it, or rejecting lots of trainees.

    You know it's true, BLP 

The result lands BLP near the bottom of the table, again. Elsewhere, Simmons & Simmons said that it was retaining 78% of its trainees as NQs, having made offers to 22 out of 26, of whom 21 accepted. Clifford Chance produced a decent 81% result, with 51 of the cohort applying for jobs and 42 receiving offers. All accepted.

Here is the state of play at just about the end of the season. Happy trainees will be losing not a single pal, or enemy, at Burges Salmon, WFW, Fieldfisher, Forsters or Sullivan & Cromwell. But only pockets of survivors remain at Freshfields, Mishcon, Taylor Wessing, Kirkland & Ellis, Weil and Stewarts Law.

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