BigLaw Firm's School-Blind Hiring Policy

Now this is real elitist reform right here. The ABA Journal reports that a "British-based law firm, Clifford Chance, has introduced a 'CV blind' policy that hides candidates’ university information from those who are doing final interviews."

"The aim is to eliminate bias in favor of Oxford, Cambridge and other leading schools. Clifford Chance adopted the policy last year, leading to a 28 percent increase in the number of institutions from which it drew trainees."

As a senior employee of Clifford Chance put it, “[w]e’re looking for the gems and they’re not all in the jeweler’s shop.”

A 28 percent increase in the number of institutions is pretty substantial. Currently, the name brand law schools in the U.S. are the main feeder schools into BigLaw leaving little room for candidates from the other 140+ law schools in the country. If U.S. BigLaw were to follow the lead of Clifford Chance, I wonder how many additional schools would be represented in new associate hiring?

It's something worth looking into, if only a U.S. BigLaw firm would take the chance.


By Emmanuel Huybrechts from Laval, Canada [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGolden_Lady_Justice%2C_Bruges%2C_Belgium_(6204837462).jpg

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