Freshfields Delays Start Dates

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is asking some of its trainees to push back their start dates with the firm.

A number of trainees set to join the firm in August 2010 are being asked to defer the start date of their training contract to February 2011.

Freshfields has 64 trainees due to start in August next year and only 32 set to join the following February. The firm said the decision was prompted by a desire to balance the size of the intakes and was not related to economic conditions.

The August 2009 and February 2010 intakes will not be changed.

Lovells and Simmons & Simmons both approached their March 2009 intake to ask for volunteers to start in 2010.

London’s Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is an international law firm with offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the US. In 2006 it was the world’s fourth largest law firm by revenues.