A best practice code urging law firms to pay work experience interns at least the minimum wage and to recruit them from a broader social range was published yesterday by the Gateways to the Professions Collaborative Forum (GPCF), of which the Legal Services Board (LSB) is a member.

The code also encourages the profession to plan the professional skills that the interns will gain from their work experience; give them a formal induction; treat them the same as regular employees; and on completion of the internship, give them certification, a reference and feedback.

LSB chief executive Chris Kenny said: ‘It is crucial that access to these opportunities is not based on personal connections, but on a transparent and fair recruitment process.

‘It is equally important that internships carry with them appropriate remuneration, so that they are not just the preserve of those who can afford to work for nothing.

'We encourage approved regulators and professional bodies to adopt the code and promote it among their regulated communities.’

Research indicates that students with connections to the profession through family or friends are twice as likely to secure work experience at an early stage than those without connections.

Applicants with such experience are then ‘significantly’ more likely to be offered a training contract, with one study showing that 63% of those who had carried out holiday work gained a contract compared with 43% who had not.