Spotlight: interview with...Patrick McCann, Director Learning, Linklaters

Linklaters' Director Learning, Patrick McCann, talks to us about his and the firm's involvement in spearheading a number of industry initiatives in the L&D/D,E&I spaces. We discuss his involvement in the SWSQF, the CLLS solicitor apprentice collaboration and the SQE and what impact they are having on the legal profession. Patrick also talks about how important it is to represent and mentor LGBT+ junior lawyers and legal professionals and, on a lighter note, reveals his guilty pleasure.

Patrick, you have been with Linklaters for almost 7 years. What are your main responsibilities in your role as Director Learning?

The overall creation and delivery of our development – from identifying what needs to be done, translating that into deliverables, leading a team to get done what needs to be done, representing the firm’s L&D team in the legal market.

In your area of specialism, what frustrates you most about the legal industry? How does it improve?

I think there’s great opportunity for people to learn more than they do – to take ideas from elsewhere, to adapt and deploy them, to get a bit better every day. I’m not sure everyone runs into things with a similar mindset – I love people to create more than critique. What I do love about the legal sector is how smart, driven and impactful people are – you really can get some great stuff done.

Linklaters was one of the six spearhead firms participating in the City of London Law Society (CLLS) solicitor apprentice collaboration. Can you tell us a little about your involvement and what the collaboration’s aims are?

Acting on behalf of CLLS Training Committee, Joanna Hughes and I have set up a collaboration called #CityCentury between, now, 50 City law firms to bring in solicitor apprentices – allowing aspiring solicitors to qualify through a learning:lawyering approach – getting qualified whilst earning a salary. 15 firms were already doing this, it looks like another 35 or so will join them in the next couple of years – doubling or maybe even tripling the amount big-ticket legal careers that will be available each year – that number should easily exceed 100 soon. It's pretty revolutionary and I think will transform at least the junior end of the City’s legal services sector. The momentum we are getting is astounding – I’ve never seen anything like it in my more than 30 years in and around City law firms.

Patrick, you have led some ambitious plans at Linklaters to support the Social Welfare Solicitors Qualification Fund (SWSQF). You received the CLLS Distinguished Service Award last year in recognition of your outstanding work in setting up the SWSQF and raising sufficient donations for 22 social welfare lawyers to be funded through the solicitors’ qualification process in 2022. Talk us through this scheme and the work already achieved. How can organisations get involved with the funding?

SWSQF is essentially a matching scheme – pairing up funding from commercial law organisations with talented front-line aspiring solicitors in areas such as crime, domestic rights, housing, immigration and so on – finding them and then paying for the necessary courses and assessments to qualify. Our candidates and their employers working in the non-remunerative social welfare sector simply couldn’t afford to do it. It’s incredibly humbling to hear about the work these unsung heroes do. Our cohort members tell us it changes their lives and, more importantly, the clients they represent who have our talented people stay in the sector and deliver high-quality advocacy. It’s really simple but so effective. We’ve raised over £600,000 to date from 31 organisations meaning nearly 70 social welfare solicitors will be created. We always need funding – my best guess is that there are at least twice as many deserving funding candidates as we can currently fund. To get involved contact me on LinkedIn or google “SWSQF” to find out more. It’s been fantastic to see how the market has supported this.

Linklaters is one of six law firms in the City Consortium, all of which have embraced the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). How does the SQE work to better equip your future trainees? What impact do you think SQE will have on the future of the legal profession?

The course we have created with BPP law school has two main aims – to equip our future trainees to pass both part of SQE at first attempt and to gain the knowledge and skills to thrive as lawyers in our firms. SQE tests what the SRA wants to establish in terms of skills and knowledge, but some of the “magic sauce” in our course is the Plus Programme which mirrors the rotational element of a training contract and is really mind-blowing in the learning tech and methodology it uses. I have some observations about SQE’s long-term contact and very much hope it does deliver extremely competent solicitors from a wide variety of backgrounds. Watch this space!

Tell the readers something we wouldn’t know about the Linklaters firm. Or describe the culture in 3 words?

The firm is surprisingly, refreshingly, motivationally innovative – we work quite quickly, are prepared to invest in the right things, like doing the right thing, are supported in doing that. Senior leadership empower me quite a lot which I love. Three words: buzz, deliver, create.

How important is it for you within your role to represent and mentor LGBTQ+ junior lawyers and legal professionals and what impact is that having for the team and the culture at Linklaters?

I’m passionate about helping younger LGBTQ+ colleagues. There are layers which junior LGBTQ+ lawyers, for example, need to navigate – coming out, life, confidence, relationships, authenticity, resilience that benefit from mentoring, as well as the stuff all junior lawyers need to work through – balance, impact, client service etc. What we hear from our mentoring programme participants is that they value the space to work with others in the community and that both sides learn much from each other. Linklaters are excellent in the D,E&I space, in my opinion, and I love that we are getting this done. The tiny team working on this is super-productive.

You’re passionate about improving equal opportunity to enter the legal profession. Despite a wealth of initiatives, the industry continues to lack diversity. Access to the legal profession unfortunately continues to hinder those from low socio-economic backgrounds and/or those from ethnic backgrounds. If there is one thing which all law firms should be doing to help remove barriers of accessibility with the aim to become fully inclusive employers, what would that be?

I see one of the main barriers as being the expectation/tradition of incurring university debt to qualify as a solicitor – solicitor apprenticeships, where you get paid to work and the government pays for your re=qualification education, is I think a really good answer to at least one of the problems. There’s more, but that for me is a pretty obvious – and doable – one.

Do you have a quote or a life mantra you go by which you could share with us?

“Happen it.” If you want something to occur, you have to get it done. I try to hang around with people of a different mindset. I’d like to think that when I finish my time on this planet, I will have improved some things and have some good times to look back on. My husband is exhausted by my frenetic energy.

Who would you most like to switch places with for a day (could be anyone — a celebrity or even an animal!)

Dannii Minogue. She’s had a life and is still standing – and looking amazing. Or both of my dogs – I often say that I work to give my dogs the life I would like to be living.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Terrible television – give me a heinous fly-on-the-wall situation-show and I am there. Although not Real Housewives. One has to draw the line somewhere.