Tomorrow, (Wednesday 27th October), national law firm Browne Jacobson will host its second FAIRE: virtual work experience and legal careers insight event, in partnership with Young Professionals.
Tomorrow, (Wednesday 27th October), national law firm Browne Jacobson will host its second FAIRE: virtual work experience and legal careers insight event, in partnership with Young Professionals. The event will provide students with unrivalled insight into legal career options, and support their ambitions by giving them the chance to develop their commercial awareness skills and understand the challenges and hurdles they may need to overcome to achieve their dream career.
The event is part of the firm’s FAIRE initiative – which stands for Fairer Access Into Real Experience – and is one of the UK’s largest social mobility schemes for the legal profession. In addition to insight events and virtual training sessions, FAIRE offers students equal access to work experience that can pave the way for a career in the legal sector. The first event in April was a two day ‘virtual’ programme which attracted over 7,000 attendees – putting it amongst the largest events of its kind. Attendees came from across the UK, including over 50% from Black, Asian or Minority ethnic communities and a high proportion from lower socio-economic postcodes. The event pro-actively targeted schools in every social mobility cold spot.
Tomorrow’s event looks to build on this success and offer further support to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds interested in a legal career. The one-day virtual event is free to attend and has attracted significant interest, with over 8,200 registered participants, including 76% female, 57% BAME and 55% from social mobility backgrounds. FAIRE events are unique in offering free access for all students, with no specific academic grades needed and no lengthy selective application process.
Hosted from Browne Jacobson’s London office, the event will feature high-profile speakers from the legal profession, including Sally Penni MBE, Barrister and author of Women in Law, Shaun Wallace, Barrister and television personality, who features on ITV’s The Chase, Paul McConnell, Head of Employability at University of Birmingham Law School and Lubna Shuja, Vice-President of the Law Society. The speakers will host sessions on topics ranging from the importance of diversity in the legal sector, panel discussions on the SQE and career opportunities in the CPS, demonstrating the breadth of opportunities available to students in the legal sector.
After the event, all attendees will receive an e-certificate to add to their CV, to help enhance their future career prospects. They will also be able to access further support through virtual skill sessions, including CV workshops, sessions around commercial awareness and how to succeed at assessment centres.
Browne Jacobson’s commitment to promoting greater diversity and inclusion in the legal profession is nationally recognised. Its innovative approach, spearheaded by the FAIRE programme, secured the Innovation in Diversity & Inclusion Award at the 2021 Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards and the Innovation Award at the fifth annual UK Social Mobility Awards 2021.
Tom Lyas, Recruitment Manager at Browne Jacobson and creator of FAIRE, commented:
“I am extremely proud of our commitment at Browne Jacobson to supporting greater access to the profession. The pandemic has had a huge impact on this generation of young people. Not only has their education been disrupted, but many career events and opportunities have been taken away from them too.
Building on the success of our first event, this time we have worked to increase our reach even further to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, who have been particularly affected by the pandemic, by working with schools and higher education providers in social mobility cold spots.
This event is part of a series of events designed to realise our ambition as a firm of breaking down barriers to accessing careers in professional services. We are committed to attracting future talent to the profession and helping people from all backgrounds get a foot in the door, and the FAIRE initiative and this event are a key part of this.”
Mark Blois, partner and head of Browne Jacobson’s education practice said:
“We are delighted to see the return of the FAIRE: virtual work experience and legal carers insight event. As a law firm working with more than 1300 education provider clients nationally every year, we absolutely see the benefit in of this kind of event. People from lower socio-economic and minority backgrounds are still hugely underrepresented in the legal profession so events like this will be integral in changing the way law firms recruit future talent and ensuring law firms foster a culture of inclusivity.”
Dan Miller, Founder and CEO of Young Professionals, commented:
“We are really proud to have been working with Browne Jacobson for a few years now and in particular on the FAIRE programme. This work experience scheme has helped thousands of students across the U.K. secure some fantastic insights to the legal industry. We are looking forward to continuing our support on reaching more students from social mobility backgrounds and helping them further as they enter into the world of work.”
Regardless of the outcome of ballots on industrial action, unless there is drastic change to funding for schools in relation to pay increases, it will be unusual to find any organisational budget that is not impacted by the current economic situation.
There’s been little evidence of interventions or financial management reviews this year and it appears the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has re-focussed on financial delivery. It’s also telling that there were no discernible changes to the reporting of financial irregularities in the Academies Trust Handbook 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel De Souza, has recently published a report “Beyond the labels: a SEND system which works for every child, every time”, which she intends to sit alongside the DfE’s SEND Review (2019) and SEND Green Paper (2022) and which she hopes will put children’s voices at the heart of the government’s review of SEND system.
Official statistics show that 15,336 claims which included a complaint of age discrimination were received at the Employment Tribunals between March 2020 and March 2021.
As well as providing day-to-day support to help you focus on managing your settings, we also provide training and professional development on a range of topics to keep you and your staff up-to-date.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHCR) recently issued new, non-statutory guidance regarding the wearing of natural or protective hairstyles, specifically in reference to their representation in uniform, behaviour or standalone appearance policies.
Emma Hughes, head of HR services at Browne Jacobson, explains how CST’s updated executive pay report and the linked benchmarking service from XpertHR can help trust boards make robust decisions on pay.
There’s greater opportunity than ever for parents, carers and guardians to voice any concerns they have relating to their child’s education and for their concerns to be heard and to be taken seriously. While most staff in schools and academies are conscious of their legal duties relating to complaints management, many are struggling to cope with such a significant increase in the volume of complaints they must manage.
This guidance has been prepared to support academy trusts (Trusts) who want to hold a fully virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) or a hybrid AGM, as we know that Trusts may want to be prepared for future disruption as well as having a general interest in holding more meetings virtually. The guidance also applies to other meetings of the Members (known as General Meetings).
We’re pleased to collaborate with Lloyds Bank, who recently asked us and audit and risk specialists Crowe UK to offer guidance that academy trusts would find helpful when considering setting up a trading subsidiary.
The World Cup kicks off in Qatar on Sunday 20 November 2022, with the final taking place on Sunday 18 December 2022. Undoubtedly, this is a huge sporting event, and many employees will be keen to show their support for their favourite teams. However, due to the time difference, start times for the matches are between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. UK time, which could have an impact on employers if employees who wish to watch the matches are scheduled to work.
The DfE has published new guidance and opened the application process for window two of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) for 2022/2023, with a fund of £86m in trust capacity funding focused particularly on education investment areas.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established in March 2015. We now have its report. As you would expect with such a broad scope, the report is long and makes a number of far-reaching recommendations. In this article, Dai Durbridge highlights seven of the 20 recommendations, sets out how they could impact on schools and suggests what steps to take now.