Brunel Law School recently hosted the Macfarlanes training scholarship event raising the awareness of a unique programme developed by Macfarlanes and delivered in partnership with Brunel Law School.
The Macfarlanes training scholarship is designed to address socio-economic barriers that discourage talented students from joining the legal profession. The scholarship supports three Brunel law students annually through a fully-funded programme from the first year of their law degree onwards as well as providing mentoring and paid work experience at the firm.
During the event, two of Macfarlanes’ current training scholars, Sarah and Dhruv, shared their experiences at Macfarlanes. Senior partner Sebastian Prichard-Jones spoke about the importance of the scholarship and Brunel alumna Saskia also shared insight into her career at the firm.
The expectation is that the scholars will become trainees and then associates with the firm. Macfarlanes will cover the full cost of university and SQE tuition fees, alongside paid work experience, a paid placement year at the firm, and mentoring from senior lawyers throughout.
This significantly reduces the financial burden faced by many socially-mobile graduates when they enter the workplace and gives participants the opportunity to develop their legal knowledge and skills, while building their networks in the profession.
Further to this and available to students more broadly, the firm has also relaunched the Macfarlanes bursary. This is a financial support package open to undergraduates attending any UK university and studying any discipline. Support includes grants to cover access to technology, and funding for the costs of missing work or paying for accommodation when attending a Macfarlanes event.
Commenting on the partnership, Head of Brunel Law School, Prof Jurgita Malinauskaite noted: “We are truly delighted that Brunel Law School has been selected to partner with Macfarlanes for this unique initiative. I hope our partnership will continue to flourish in the years to come”.
Catherine Morgan-Guest, Early Legal Careers Senior Manager at Macfarlanes, added: “The Macfarlanes training scholarship is designed to support scholars from their first year of university all the way through to becoming qualified solicitors at the firm six years later and beyond. We look forward to working with Brunel again this year as we identify and onboard our second scholar cohort after such a positive start to the programme last year.”
Debbie Chay commented: “The launch event for the Macfarlanes training scholarships has rapidly become one of the highlights of our academic year. The unmissable networking opportunity it creates for all Brunel Law Students is invaluable. Described by our students as 'inspirational', 'accessible', 'informative' 'confidence-building' and just 'great fun', it does more to convince them about the opportunities that are increasingly opening up to them than any amount of encouragement we can give them over much longer periods of time. That is the real bonus of partnerships like this one.”