City law firms are offering graduate recruits up to £10,000 each to stay away from the office for a year. The move has been driven by the credit crunch, with firms fearing that trainees will not get sufficient experience.

One leading firm, Norton Rose, has invited 55 recruits — whose starting salary is £35,700 — to defer joining, at a likely cost of £200,000.

Not all are expected to take up the offer and the firm said yesterday that it would still have intakes in September and January. A spokesman said: “This is driven by the fact that if there are too many trainees at one time, in the current climate, they won’t get the level of experience they should have.”

Those who accept will get up to £10,000, provided they promise to do “something meaningful and constructive” with their time off, although they are not barred from taking a job as well. The firm said that might include learning a new language while travelling the world; or carrying out voluntary work overseas.

One Norton Rose partner said: “Anyone who doesn’t take this offer up ought to have their training contract revoked for stupidity!”

Norton Rose said that it has given trainees options to develop their skills during the year off by offering opportunities for pro bono work, internships with clients, completing a masters degree and placements within international offices.

Another firm, Penningtons, is offering trainees £5,000 to defer, and a spokeswoman admitted that the graduates could do anything they like with the money. Caroline Ainsworth said that five out of 20 trainees had accepted. “There are no criteria as to what they spend the money on. A couple of them are using it on extra travelling, which is quite exciting for them,” she added. Other firms offering £5,000 for deferral include Lovells, Baker & McKenzie and DLA Piper.

Helen Wright was looking forward to starting her career as a legal trainee this autumn at Penningtons. But when the firm offered her £5,000 to defer for a year she jumped at the chance.

“It just came out of the blue,” she said yesterday. “They wrote to say would I be interested, as there was not as much work as previously because of the economic climate and because of that, I would not have as much responsibility as I would have done.”

She now plans to go travelling to Australia and America. “I’m so excited. It’s a massive opportunity to do something I would not have been able to do do and gain a different experience — a unique chance,” she said.

Ms Wright, 22, from Canterbury, Kent, took a law degree at Southampton University and is now doing a one-year vocational legal practice course at the College of Law, Guildford.

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