City firms look to Australia for top trainees

City law firms are looking to the other side of the globe for new trainees because domestic candidates are not up to scratch commercially or internationally, it was suggested this week.It follows the development that from next year, Australian law graduates can be fast-tracked onto training contracts at City firms.

This will be achieved through a new 15-week course devised by the College of Law Alliance, the partnership between the Australian and English Colleges of Law.Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy and Linklaters are among those to express an interest in making use of the scheme.Professor Christopher Roper, director of the Alliance, admitted that the scheme may ruffle feathers, but said Australian law firms and UK graduates were 'just going to have to learn to deal with it'.City firms have been recruiting qualified Australian lawyers for a number of years and the move was a natural progression, he explained.'International firms regard Australian law graduates very highly because they have two degrees, many of them insubjects like commerce, economics or business,' Professor Roper said.

'English law graduates just don't have thatcommercial orientation.'Nigel Savage, chief executive of the English College of Law, added: 'Noone sees our own qualification as a global one, and the Law Society takes purely a domestic view.

It needs to ask: "Could we turn the LPC - which is a good course - into a global qualification?" If the Aussies can do it, so can we.'Roger Smith, Law Society's director of legal education, acknowledged that there has been a large shift towards global work.

But he added: 'Law is necessarily jurisdiction-based, and the message we are getting from law firms is that they want trainees with a solid command of the principles and practices of English law - then they can develop their own careers afterwards.'Paula Rohan