Social Mobility at Womble Bond Dickinson

Having established a series of social mobility initiatives, our longer-term aim is to increase the appeal of both
our graduate and apprenticeship programmes to unlock our colleagues’ and others’ full potential.

It is our apprenticeship programme, which is designed for college leavers in collaboration with law firms and
clients, of which we are most proud of. 

• In 2017, we worked with a consortium of 4 other law firms to introduce the North East Solicitor Apprenticeship scheme. This has given our firm greater appeal as a firm of choice and access to a wider group of candidates.
• We led on the development of the assessment process, as we were the firm with the most established and
  sophisticated graduate assessment process. Northumbria University and CILEX Law School were,
  and continue to be, key partners in the success of the apprenticeship programme.
• We have developed our lessons learnt from the NESA scheme and have built two key differences into the
  programme with Bristol City Council:
  .1.better networking: through networking with our apprentices, the Council’s apprentice is better connected
  to groups across our firm, and involved in various networking, and learning and development initiatives, and
  • 2. apprentice exchange element: once the programme is further progressed (we are only 7 months into
  a 6 year programme), we will run an apprentice exchange with the Council so that the apprentices
  have the benefit of experience in both the public and the private sectors

Our collaboration with NESA has so far led to the creation of 15 new career opportunities in total.
We are similarly very excited about the potential of the Bristol City Council collaboration.