MMU offers lifeline for Halliwells trainees
MANCHESTER Metropolitan University (MMU) is stepping in to help law graduates impacted by the collapse of law firm Halliwells by launching a new scheme aimed at finding work for unemployed law graduates.
The university’s law school is offering firms £1,000 to take on a skilled graduate in law on a temporary work placement. It is hoping to find work for some of the 54 trainees who were due to start work at Manchester-based Halliwells over the next 12 months.
MMU has been awarded £300,000 from the Higher Education Funding Council for England to help various unemployed graduates find quality work placements and the law school has secured a pot of money for the legal profession.
The school’s business development manager, Deborah Walker, said: “There are graduates out there who can offer a lot to a firm. The Halliwells trainees have already been offered training contracts so they are the creme-de-la-creme and stand a very good chance of being offered another position.”
She added that firms interested in the scheme do not need to take on graduates of MMU’s school of law to access the funding.
“Basically we’re going to give the law firm some funding so that they can take on a valuable new employee ‘on trial’ at no cost to themselves – kind of ‘try before you buy’,” she said.
