I saw a post about this elsewhere on the forum and I was wondering what the true differences between large and small trainee intakes are? I will be training at a firm with a fairly large intake but this never came up in interviews and I didn’t think much about it so I’m interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on what the differences are!
Large vs Small Trainee Intakes
- Thread starter moldau239
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I’m no expert on this but from what I’ve heard the bigger the intake, often to have a more outgoing culture as rheee is a lot of you starting at the same time - a bit like a uni class I guess. What always put me off personally from the smaller intakes was just having 7-10 people to interact with who knew what I was going through as a trainee. I think the benefit of a smaller intake is that you get more responsibility as there are less of you and more of an opportunity to “shine” whereas the bigger the intake the harder it is to stand out and and it’s more likely you have to be more independent in trying to get more work!
Jessica Booker
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Apart from you potentially getting to know more people, I really don’t think there is a clear big = X while small = Y point.
Even when it comes to responsibility level, it’s much more about the ratio of trainees to qualified lawyers you need to be concerned about. If you are a trainee intake of 5 but you there are only 15 lawyers in that office, you are probably going to be given less responsibility than if there are 30 trainees but 200 lawyers in the office.
Even when it comes to responsibility level, it’s much more about the ratio of trainees to qualified lawyers you need to be concerned about. If you are a trainee intake of 5 but you there are only 15 lawyers in that office, you are probably going to be given less responsibility than if there are 30 trainees but 200 lawyers in the office.
I have to agree with Jess. There's no hard and fast rule about trainee intake size and how that impacts you - most 'good' firms would have thought carefully about how to strike the perfect ratio of trainees to lawyers. It's a cost and a talent pipeline consideration, and for them to get it wrong would naturally be costly (literally) and would hurt their deal/capacity structure.
People also are quick to forget that trainees are spread across different departments and you’re almost always, at least in my experience, the only trainee on all your deals/matters. The benefit of a large trainee intake is that you might have someone who can cover you at your level, without having your work 'move up' to the next most junior person. Large intakes also benefit you insofar as you have someone at your literal level to ask questions. I won't comment on the other 'benefits' or 'negatives' that surround making friends, social life, etc - since that's person-to-person dependent. From a networking perspective, it's an inherent advantage though (more people who may be potential clients).
From my perspective, I don't agree with the generalisation that "small trainee intakes firms are ‘better’ as your responsibility is greater". For a large trainee intake 'firm' to negatively impact your development, you would need a perfect storm of trainees in your practice group asking to be put on every deal (regardless of their capacity), poor resource allocation from the partners or managers, and a really quiet department for a large trainee intake to impact your responsibility level (and this is on the assumption you’re just a quiet person who doesn’t raise their hand). You can already see there's a lot of agency for yourself to determine your responsibility, more than other extraneous factors.
People also are quick to forget that trainees are spread across different departments and you’re almost always, at least in my experience, the only trainee on all your deals/matters. The benefit of a large trainee intake is that you might have someone who can cover you at your level, without having your work 'move up' to the next most junior person. Large intakes also benefit you insofar as you have someone at your literal level to ask questions. I won't comment on the other 'benefits' or 'negatives' that surround making friends, social life, etc - since that's person-to-person dependent. From a networking perspective, it's an inherent advantage though (more people who may be potential clients).
From my perspective, I don't agree with the generalisation that "small trainee intakes firms are ‘better’ as your responsibility is greater". For a large trainee intake 'firm' to negatively impact your development, you would need a perfect storm of trainees in your practice group asking to be put on every deal (regardless of their capacity), poor resource allocation from the partners or managers, and a really quiet department for a large trainee intake to impact your responsibility level (and this is on the assumption you’re just a quiet person who doesn’t raise their hand). You can already see there's a lot of agency for yourself to determine your responsibility, more than other extraneous factors.
