Trio of magic circle training contract offers for LSE student who grew up on council estate

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By Katie King on

Panashe Jinga has turned down Linklaters and Allen & Overy to train at Freshfields

A London School of Economics (LSE) student who admits he didn’t have the smoothest start in life has revealed he has three magic circle training contract offers.

Panashe Jinga, who will be moving into the final year of his LLB this autumn, unveiled the news on LinkedIn, writing:

After receiving offers from Allen & Overy, Freshfields and Linklaters, I have decided to commence my training contract with Freshfields.

It’s a position any City law chaser would dream of, but it wasn’t always plain sailing for Jinga.

He told his 500+ LinkedIn connections that: “Growing up in a single parent household, in a ‘council estate’, and attending a school whilst it was put into special measures, it would have been easy for me to follow the wrong path.”

A screenshot of Panashe Jinga’s LinkedIn post

Jinga began studying in 2008 at Lawnswood High School in Leeds, which was placed into special measures in 2009 after being given a Grade 4 (Inadequate) by Ofsted for its overall effectiveness. It was taken out of special measures in 2011.

The law student credits much of his success to the “huge amount of support” he’s received, name checking RARE recruitment and the Stephen Lawrence Scholarship. The former is a pro-diversity legal recruitment initiative; the latter is a programme designed to address corporate law’s underrepresentation of black men from low income households.

But a quick scan of Jinga’s profile shows why he’s deserving of the training contract offer trio. Aside from achieving a solid 2:1 in his Russell Group degree so far, Jinga has also done work experience placements at (hold your breath!): Squire Patton Boggs, Clifford Chance, Macfarlanes, Hogan Lovells, Freshfields, Allen & Overy, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Goldman Sachs, and more.

This isn’t the first time a City law hopeful has wowed us with their training contract stock.

Last year, we reported that a philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) student from the University of York, who hadn’t even studied law yet, had received offers from Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Slaughter and May. Selena Pope said she was “humbled” by the offers, and that she’d accepted a place at Freshfields. She will commence her solicitor training in 2018.

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