Exclusive - Weil Gotshal lawyers find out they're not qualified. Doh!
27 August 2010
Ever had that dream that you never actually qualified and have to take your exams again? The nightmare has become reality for several Weil Gotshal associates who've found out that by failing to take part of the Professional Skills Course they never properly qualified.

Weil Gotshal is more of a corporate and private equity power house than a litigation shop, but contentious experience is a pre-requisite to completing a training contract. So it regularly sends up to half its trainee cohort on courses at the College of Law to avoid the need to put them through a full litigation seat.

However seven trainees who took the course over the last couple of years were told that they could miss out a chunk of the PSC as a result. Only they couldn't. There's some dispute as to whether the cock up was down to Weils or the College - the word "misunderstanding" has been much bandied about. But one way or another a bunch of Weils' associates were technically not qualified.

The SRA has confirmed that they have subsequently taken another course and "completed the gap in their training as required by SRA regulations".

A Weil trainee finally returns to the classroom to complete her training

 
It's not known whether this problem affects other City firms who put their trainees through this course - but if so, there could be many practitioners who are not, technically, qualified solicitors. Among other issues, that raises the question of insurance - would an insurance company actually cough up for claims made over work done by unqualified lawyers?
 
A spokeswoman for Weil told RollOnFriday that this was a "genuine mistake which has since been rectified".