According to research by The Lawyer newspaper, both leading private client firm Farrer & Co, and the local office of Cleveland-based Jones Day revealed retention rates of 100 per cent, increasing from 90 per cent and 80 per cent respectively this time last year.

Magic circle

The Anglo-US firm SNR Denton also announced an improvement, having retained 83 per cent of newly qualifieds, as opposed to 60 per cent in March 2012 and 52 per cent in September 2011.
As yet, the only magic circle firm to reveal retention figures is Slaughter and May, which reported 87.5 per cent, a slight drop from the 90 per cent retained in March. However, this figure is slightly skewed by the two trainees who resigned before offers were made.

Drop expected

The newspaper reports that those relatively optimistic figures contrast with statistics released in the recent Association of Graduate Recruiters bi-annual survey relating to newly-qualified vacancies in the English legal sector. The survey revealed that there is an average of 44.5 applications for each vacancy, and that the number of graduate vacancies on offer is expected to decrease by 16.5 per cent this year.
Alexander Brown, graduate recruitment partner at global law firm Simmons & Simmons suggested that this should not provoke significant concern: ‘I can see vacancies slimming a bit but nothing dramatic.’