The war for graduate talent has never been hotter than now. Justin Whealing looks at how firms try to pick the best of the law school crop.

It is a tough time to be a law graduate.

In a tight legal market in 2013 many firms were in the unenviable position of telling students on clerkship programs that there would not be a place for them in 2014.

In an exclusive story for Lawyers Weekly last August, deputy editor Leanne Mezrani revealed that the majority of Melbourne law students who recently completed clerkships at some of the nation’s top firms have been denied a graduate position.

In that article an anonymous Melbourne law student told Lawyers Weekly that while he has been offered a graduate position at a top-tier firm, many of his classmates with CVs that are “in good shape”, and who have achieved mid-to-high distinction averages, are scrambling to find work following the recent round of graduate job offers.

“It’s surprising – these are high-achieving students being rejected ... they’re the complete package,” he said.

It is not just top-tier firms that have a plethora of candidates when it comes to filling graduate positions.

The well-regarded and expanding mid-tier firm Holding Redlich received 160 applications for five available graduate positions in its Melbourne office for 2014.

One of its partners on the graduate recruitment committee, Jeremy Loeliger, said that the quality of graduate applicants is getting better and the selection process for law firms is getting harder.

“The quality of people coming through to us as seasonal clerks is really impressive,” says Loeliger, who himself joined Holding Redlich from Allens in 2012.

Loeliger reckons that the firm’s reputation as being culturally progressive is attracting grads. Over 25 per cent of the partners throughout the firm are female, and its provision of flexible work options and push into sexy areas of practice such as sports law has gained the attention of a younger, more progressive legal crowd.

“We are not a machine,” says Loeliger. “We don’t have huge groups of students where you are just a number doing due diligence or discovery for the first few years while we wage a war of attrition to see who is here for the journey and who we just need to get value for money out of for the first few years.”

While the various state-based graduate recruitment committees at Holding Redlich are being kept busy, it is not as if the old guard are sitting idle.

Although some blue-chip firms such as King & Wood Mallesons, Herbert Smith Freehills and Ashurst have new names and images, their reputation precedes them.

Graduates still flock to firms of that ilk, no matter how much they might be taking a battering in the press at any given time for partner defections, much like a hungry seagull will still swoop on the crinkly newspapers holding discarded hot chips on a summer’s day at Manly Beach.

“We haven’t really seen any drop-off in interest or applications,” says Sam Garner, the graduate resourcing manager at King & Wood Mallesons when asked if the steady stream of departing partners from the firm over the past 12 months has impacted on its standing in the graduate recruitment market. “We are accessible to students when we visit campuses and via our Facebook page, so we can address this directly [via those two mediums] if they have concerns.”

Publicity surrounding Ashurst losing partners and conjecture about whether its new name resonates as well in the marketplace as Blake Dawson has also not had any discernible impact on its appeal to graduates

Just over 70 graduate placements were offered for 2014, which was slightly down on 2013 but not as big a reduction as many of its top-tier and global rivals. Given that Ashurst makes graduate offers to students that have gone through its clerkship program, and it received over 3000 applications for clerkship positions, it is able to pick the cream of the graduate crop.

“It is vital to have a strong graduate recruitment program to ensure the long-term success of the firm,” says Fiona Shields, the national resourcing manager at Ashurst. “We find that lawyers that come through our graduate program are the most likely to be successful at the firm and stay with us.”

Lets be (Facebook) friends

Gen Y is au fait with social media and is all over Facebook in particular.

Smart law firms will have a targeted strategy to connect with students on social media and to use Facebook and LinkedIn as a recruiting tool.

KWM specifically uses its Facebook page to target students.

“We turned to Facebook because we wanted to position ourselves in a different way,” says Garner when discussing why this most prestigious of law firms decided to broaden its graduate recruitment strategy from the usual channels of links with university law societies and targeted sponsorships and advertising.

“It allows us to communicate with people directly and in a more dynamic way and has also allowed us to let our law clerks and graduates tell their story.”

In addition to Facebook, KWM also recently started using Instagram, the online picture-sharing network.

Pictures of clerks or graduates wheeling trolleys to court, scenes from training sessions or social snaps are the sorts of images that are displayed.

“Instagram shows what they are doing on a day-to-day basis,” she says.

“Through images we are able to show what life is like as a clerk or graduate and that it is fun.”

Garner adds that both Facebook and Instagram are the two main forums where KWM can get its recruitment message out to a mass audience.

“We still view law society sponsorships as being important, but it is a limited audience,” she says. “You might not be at uni when we are there [at an Open Day or event].

“Facebook allows you to talk to everyone.”

National firm Maddocks has recently sought to utilise LinkedIn and Facebook much more than it has previously as part of its graduate recruitment strategy.

However, it still devotes most of its energy towards traditional recruitment mechanisms.

“Face to face contact and a personalised approach is important,” says Sophie Gilbert, a Melbourne-based people and culture relationship manager with Maddocks. “Often students might find it hard to differentiate firms through a sponsorship brochure, but finding out about a firm from a person might be a drawcard for students.”

Maddocks has formal relationships with a range of universities, including the Melbourne University Law Students’ Society.

Like KWM, Ashurst uses a range of social media forums, such as LinkedIn, Tumblr and Facebook.

However, Shields says when it comes to cold, hard, cash investment, the bulk of the firm’s graduate recruitment budget is spent on sponsorships or advertising within university law society channels.

Join our firm and travel the world

One area where global law firms have a distinct advantage over national rivals is the ability to offer stints overseas.

The ability to work in New York, London and Sydney with the same firm is a compelling proposition to many young law students wishing to combine work and travel in the early part of their career.

“Yes, there is a keen interest in Ashurst for opportunities to travel and also to work with international clients on a broad range of matters,” says Shields. “That is what people tell us in interviews.”

Both Ashurst and KWM offer secondment opportunities as part of their graduate program.

For the former, it has offered graduates the chance to work in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, with discussions continuing with HQ in London about developing a reciprocal graduate posting program between the UK and Australia.

KWM also offers graduates the chance to work in the Hong Kong office, with more programs to follow.

“I do think having that broader network throughout Europe, Hong Kong, China and Australia is an advantage, and offers our lawyers more mobility,” says Garner. “One of the projects I am working on now is how secondments will roll out across that whole network.”

For the smaller national firms, a better lifestyle and a more open-minded and less stuffy environment is what they rely on to attract and high-achieving students.

Maddocks and Holding Redlich are in the top handful of large firms when it comes to female partner percentages.

With almost 60 per cent of law graduates being female, that is a powerful selling point.

“The right cultural fit is very important,” says Liz Ryan, who is Maddocks’ director of people and culture. She adds that during the interview process, all graduates are asked about the firm’s core values, with diversity one of the five pillars alongside collaboration, integrity, innovation and stewardship.

“This is very, very important.”

“The [interviewing] partners take that very seriously. We are looking for people committed to our values.”

Go with the gut

While it is a student’s academic performance that will get them a shot at a position, it is the interview process that will be a deal clincher or deal breaker.

It is during this process that academic metrics go out the window and personality comes to the fore.

“There is an x-factor element about this,” says Holding Redlich’s Loeliger, adding that you have to include a component of “gut feel”.

“It is how you get along with the person at the end of the day. We take it as read that if you come in for an interview, your academics are solid. It comes very much down to personality and business need.”

Shields says that the clerkship program is invaluable in finding out if some of the students you took a punt on based on intuition matches up with reality.

“We bring some people into the clerkship program who might not fit the perfect profile on paper, and when they are with us, we evaluate if our gut feeling is right or not,” she says.

“If you offer straight graduate positions, you might not be in a position to make those ‘gut feel’ type offers.”