With the College of Law set to launch its alumni association, Grania Langdon-Down looks at the business benefits such bodies can bring to law firms and law schools


With a pool of 125,000 former students to tap into, the College of Law is launching an alumni association to mark its 45th anniversary and celebrate its ‘unparalleled heritage’.



It is the latest in a line of alumni associations set up by law schools and law firms which have recognised the two-way benefits they offer – enabling alumni to network, make new professional contacts and have access to training, while offering law schools and firms many potential business development opportunities. The web has been a boon because much can now be done online.



Since the College of Law was founded in 1962, when the Law Society’s School of Law merged with the tutorial firm of Gibson and Weldon, it has trained most of the solicitors in England and Wales, and more than half of the senior and managing partners of the leading firms.



Distinguished former students include cabinet minister Hazel Blears, former Conservative Party chairman Francis Maude, Cherie Booth QC, broadcaster and journalist Carol Thatcher, gold medal Olympic rower Jonny Searle, and Sarah Winkless, the Olympic double skulls rower.



Professor Nigel Savage, the college’s chief executive, says: ‘There are many former students who are now in positions where they are buying training or recruiting students and we want them to remember the college.’



He has first-hand knowledge of the reach of alumni associations. ‘I was profiled recently in a magazine which mentioned I was a graduate of Sheffield University. Within a couple of days, I had received a letter from the university’s alumni office congratulating me on the profile but saying I was not on their list of alumni members.’



So far, 2,500 former students have signed up to the association. Prue Shapcott, the college’s head of research and consumer information, is preparing for the association’s launch on 10 October at Law Society HQ in Chancery Lane, London. ‘We became aware of former students wanting something like this through Friends Reunited, where there are 4,000 people registered from the college. It seemed a natural progression to say we can provide a forum welcoming both young and older alumni.’



The main benefits, says Ms Shapcott, will be career enhancement opportunities, with networking and professional development master classes. ‘There is also a lot of goodwill from the older alumni members towards younger lawyers and there will be opportunities for mentoring.’



However, unlike some university alumni associations, she says: ‘Fundraising won’t be a main aim, though there is the potential for alumni members to contribute towards our bursary schemes.’



Certainly, this low-key attitude towards fundraising contrasts with the eye-watering sums raised by alumni in the US. Harvard Law School, with 37,000 members, is nearing the end of what it calls ‘the most ambitious fundraising drive in the history of legal education’ – rising $400 million (£200 million) over five years towards financial aid for students, new buildings and research programmes. So far it has raised $370 million, three-quarters from alumni. The highest individual donations have been $31 million and $25 million, the latter from a 1971 graduate who wants part of a new building named after him.



Cardiff University Law School set up its own alumni programme – CLAN (Cardiff Law Alumni Network) – two years ago and has 7,000 alumni on its register, some of whom were undergraduates in the 1960s. It leaves the main fundraising to the university’s alumni association, which is two-thirds of the way to its target of raising £1 million to help students and young researchers by encouraging alumni to donate an hour of their pay a month.



Georgina Thomson, who joined the law school two years ago to set up the programme, says: ‘We recognise the benefits of keeping in touch with our alumni and maintaining a two-way relationship. We encourage our alumni to be involved with the school, not necessarily in a financial way. We have a pro bono scheme and some of our local alumni are involved in that.’



There is growing trend among law firms to establish alumni associations. City firm Simmons & Simmons set up its programme in 2004. It is open to lawyers and senior support staff, and has more than 1,400 members.



Jane Cozens, marketing and communications manager, says: ‘Alumni programmes are essential. First, they generate a sense of goodwill about the firm. You want people who are leaving to go with a warm and fuzzy feeling about the firm.



‘But it also gives you a pool of potential re-hires – it is a lot cheaper recruiting people you know already. Studies show that people who are returners remain longer than those who are new joiners. There is also the potential of new business if people go off to be in-house counsel or need to refer work from their new firm.’



When it comes to the social side, Ms Cozens says: ‘What doesn’t work is having one large party and then ignoring them the rest of the year. My view is that including alumni in mainstream events is more effective than having events just for them, which is potentially patronising. We are not trying to keep them away from our current clients and we don’t exclude those who have gone to work for competitors because, at some point, they may want to come back.’



Magic circle firm Allen & Overy’s global alumni programme, which is open to all, was launched two years ago and has about 1,750 members, plus 700 current employees.



Alex Pease, who retired two years ago but was asked back to chair the programme, says: ‘Our view is that everyone makes an equal contribution to the firm – it is not just lawyers who are important. One of the programme’s roles is to advise people who have left, whether for more money or because they reached some ceiling here, on the opportunities for returning.’



They too do not exclude those working for their competitors. ‘Tomorrow ,they may be working for one of our clients, so it is hugely important to keep in touch,’ says Mr Pease. ‘But it’s not just about the benefits of former colleagues giving you instructions. Many former employees go into government and regulatory jobs and having a positive feeling about Allen & Overy can be hugely beneficial for us and our clients in certain situations.’



Among the benefits the firm offers alumni is use of serviced office space at its new offices in Bishops Square, which has proved very popular with out-of-town members – ‘there is only so much work you can do in a Starbucks,’ says Mr Pease.



He says one of the main difficulties in increasing membership is the Data Protection Act, which prevents the association using human resources information within the firm to track where people have gone. One way it attracts new members is by holding ‘class reunions’ for former trainees to meet up with their contemporaries who remained at the firm.



For Alexandra Marks, a partner with fellow magic circle firm Linklaters, her background as secretary and soon-to-be president of the Brasenose College Alumni Association, encouraged her interest in promoting the firm’s global alumni programme.



‘We are keen to encourage networking and a sense that alumni are part of the family, even if they go off to do something else. It also has a strong internal message that our people are of value to us even if they go off to a competitor and that they are not just of interest while they are adding to the bottom line.’



Alumni programmes are not just the preserve of the biggest City firms. Medium-sized City firm Stephenson Harwood formalised its programme last year, although there have been practice group alumni initiatives for the last decade.



Communications manager Rosemary Perrett says: ‘A number of our alumni have gone on to senior positions in industry and the public sector. There are also those alumni who may decide to rejoin the firm – we have two partners who left to experience other careers before returning to us.



‘For the firm, there are opportunities to develop business relationships. Alumni can be a source of work – so it’s good to be able to communicate to them what is happening at the firm and update them on our new capabilities as well as culture changes. There are real advantages for the alumni too – when they instruct us, they can handpick the lawyers they work with.’



Certainly alumni associations need nurturing. Dickinson Dees, the largest firm in the north-east with 860 partners and staff, launched an alumni association two years ago. However, co-ordinator Sally Brewis says that its launch coincided with opening new offices. ‘It hasn’t really taken off. Probably more could have been done but there was so much going on.’



However, what is crucial is to get the balance in what the association offers right. One alumnus of a City firm went to the launch of its association. ‘The senior partner, after going on about how good it was for us all to catch up, mentioned – looking patently embarrassed because it’s not the kind of thing a chap does – that if we ever needed to refer work, not to forget the old firm. That was so clearly the point of the whole thing that it was toe-curling.’



Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist