Widening access to the legal profession should be a key goal for firms - Ryan McCuaig

The CMS Scholarship programme supports Scottish high school students from underrepresented groups by helping them gain access to the legal profession. Each year, ten successful candidates from all over Scotland benefit from mentoring and paid work experience at the firm, with up to three of these individuals offered £10,000 in financial support to help them pursue a law degree at university.

This programme is aimed at pupils from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who, like myself, have the potential to become the first generation in their family to attend higher education. This opens doors to those who have talent but perhaps lack the network or financial support enjoyed by those with a more advantaged upbringing.

Our own programme has been set up with three key aims in mind. Firstly, the financial assistance provided is essential in helping individuals from underrepresented groups access the profession by overcoming monetary barriers including the cost of textbooks as well as accommodation and other living expenses faced by students. This support makes university viable for many bright, young candidates and enables them to spend more time focusing on their studies rather than worrying about making ends meet while pursuing a law degree.

Secondly, the work experience element provides our participants with an opportunity to develop skills and build a network of relationships within the legal profession that might otherwise not be accessible to them.

The third aim of our scholarship programme is to create community. Through mentoring from lawyers from a similar background, participants are able to identify role models who can inspire them to see themselves as valued members of this profession in the future. This can be particularly powerful if, like me, you grew up not knowing any lawyers with backgrounds like yours.

The experience and feedback from participants shapes the way we deliver the programme. We have created a pipeline where a number of scholarship recipients have emerged from their studies and successfully secured a traineeship at CMS where they, in turn, can act as mentors for the next generation of lawyers. In January, CMS was delighted to offer training contracts to six previous participants in the programme, three of whom are in Scotland.

It’s important that we build on this momentum. CMS is now looking at the social mobility pay gap in an effort to go beyond entry into the legal profession by groups that are currently underrepresented – also tracking pay, retention and promotion of those colleagues as well.

The Elitist Britain report published in 2019 shows the scale of challenge in widening representation in some parts of the legal profession. It highlighted how 65 per cent of senior judges attended an independent fee-paying school, against a UK population average of less than seven per cent who’ve been privately educated.

While celebrating the positive social impact of legal scholarships and the value they deliver within our profession, we also recognise that there is still some way to go.

More of these initiatives will be needed to make our profession more representative of the society in which we live.

Ryan McCuaig is an Associate at CMS