The Scottish Young Lawyer’s Association have obtained legal Opinion from Counsel which establishes that a trainee cannot be made redundant.

The Opinion reaffirms that the training itself is the essential component of the trainee contract, and that any trainees who have been made redundant will be able to claim not only for lost earnings, but loss of benefit and future prospects.

Iain Mitchell QC who wrote the Opinion said the change in terminology from apprentice to trainee had led some employers into the mistake that the role had changed.

“Because words like apprentice are old fashioned and they invent new words like trainee, they think it is a new concept. In reality it is in substance, a contract of apprenticeship,” he says.

““From an economic perspective, the temptation to sack trainees is quite attractive. Legally the role hasn’t changed at all. It is still the same thing that it always was.”

The opinion concludes that a trainee cannot be made redundant, and their position is essentially more secure than an employed solicitor.

“Redundancy is a statutory concept that occurs as a consequence of a contract of employment. As a traineeship is not a contract of employment, it therefore follows that there is no such thing as redundancy. So if somebody is made “redundant” from a traineeship contract, well I am sorry, they are not being made redundant; they are just being sacked. You can make an employed solicitor redundant, but you can’t make the trainee redundant.

SYLA President Rachael Gibson says the group obtained the opinion was to raise awareness of the light of trainees and to put a stop to the practice of making trainees redundant.

“The SYLA would definitely support any trainee who wanted to take action against a former employer. I would be very pleased if there were sanctions that could be placed on firms to prevent them making trainees redundant from now on.”

The Law Society said 56 trainees had been affected, with around 20 being made “redundant”.

The forthcoming edition of The Firm explores the Opinion in full. Further discussion can be read here.