City law firms rounded on the Law Society's proposals for a new training framework this week as the City of London Law Society (CLLS) warned that the increased cost of taking on trainees would hit City as well as high street firms.

The CLLS said the proposals would 'increase bureaucracy' and were 'not actually in the interests of the public, the profession or those seeking to enter the profession'.


The CLLS criticised requirements that all trainee supervisors should attend an external training course, and that student 'portfolios' compiled during training should be marked by external assessors at the firms' expense. It said the cost involved could lead to 'skewing the practical experience' because smaller firms would no longer be able to offer training contracts.


John Trotter, a CLLS training committee member and training principal at City firm Lovells, said: 'The proposed training courses for supervisors may push costs up. Our view is that within the large firms we already provide training for our training supervisors and we should still be able to do that.


'City firms favour the system becoming more flexible for trainees to qualify, provided that standards are not sacrificed. Most of us feel we would want to continue with the legal practice course, and we do not favour the abolition of the training contract.'


Committee member David Coleman, partner at City firm Macfarlanes, added: 'The impact of the proposals is more likely to affect the number of trainees taken on outside the City, but clearly there are issues of cost and regulatory requirements which would affect any firm wishing to take on a trainee.


'We are concerned about the excessive requirements of the portfolio. Having some sort of record of training is essential, but the portfolio should not become an end in itself.'


The Committee of Heads of University Law Schools, meanwhile, warned that the proposals would 'make quality assurance much more difficult to manage' and could lead to an 'influx of providers, increasing the likelihood of exposure to poor- quality courses.'