Research shows that top City law firms hardly recruit any trainees from their paralegals

But lots of pretty good other firms do

The leading corporate law firms only very rarely hire trainees from their ample pool of paralegals, new research has found.

However, a host of fairly well-renowned outfits have very different policies — and award training contracts to a hefty proportion of graduates already working in paralegal roles with them.

The findings — from the magazine Lawyer2B (registration required) — show big name pair Bircham Dyson Bell and DAC Beachcroft to have granted, respectively, a whopping 80% and 60% of their 2015 training contracts to their paralegals.

At the other end of the spectrum, magic circle giant Allen & Overy awarded just 1% of its training contracts last year to its paralegals. The figures weren’t much cheerier at Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright, Osborne Clarke, Jones Day and Ashurst, where former paralegals made up between 3-5% of trainees.

The exception to the rule was Trower & Hamlins, which unusually for a fairly high-level City player recruited 40% of its trainees from its paralegal pool. Irwin Mitchell, Shoosmiths and the London office of US firm O’Melveny & Myers were the other big name firms to allow a substantial proportion of paralegals to progress onto training contracts.

Honourable mentions also go to Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard, whose 2015 trainee intake was made up of 18-20% paralegals.

The full list, which was topped by Midlands agricultural law practice Roythornes (all its trainees are ex-paralegals at the firm) is below, as compiled by Lawyer2B.