KWM has apparently offered paralegal jobs to lawyer hopefuls who had training contract offers with the old Europe, UK, and Middle East (EUME) partnership before it went into administration.
While future lawyers who had training contracts with the failed EUME partnership were
eventually rescued by other law firms, those who only had offers and had not signed training contracts weren’t so lucky. The new presence in Europe and the Middle East, established right after the collapse of the legacy SJ Berwin partnership, has encouraged those individuals to apply for paralegal posts, according to a report from Legal Cheek.
The re-entry into the market was swift because KWM is structured as a Swiss verein, with the Australia, China, and Hong Kong partnerships having separate profit pools from the now-defunct EUME business.
“We have contacted UK-based trainees who had been offered roles at the legacy KWM EUME firm to invite them to paralegal for our new firm,” KWM told the publication. “We wanted to first reach out to those impacted by the administration before going to market. We have had a number of applications, all of which we are interviewing.”
However, the new European and Middle East presence refused to go deeper into why the firm offered paralegal jobs instead of training contracts, saying that as a new firm, “it is only right and proper that we assess how best to meet our own and potential future trainee needs.”
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