Told mum that DSIS was being entitled. She told me I’m wrong. AIBU?

I would put it all back on her and put yourself in a neutral position.

Take a stance of ‘spoke to a few different people and it’s all about being a self starter these days, proving that you can get on by yourself. Getting a position yourself , showing initiative etc. It will actually work against you if you tried to use contacts. That’s why they stopped all personal recommendations in magic circle firms apparently, and even look down on those trying to use contacts. Now DSIS, what have you done to initiate your own career.’

And repeat. Put all action onto your sis. If your mum moans or tries to get you/ your BIL involved, it can be ‘ remember, you can’t get involved! We help her by NOT helping her, etc.’ Once it’s clear that it’s all on her, it won’t be brought up. ( as you will hold her to account every time it is brought up!)

There are many ways dsis could use herself to get a job/ train as a lawyer. She needs to get on with it herself

Omg OP I'm so with you on this. I absolutely hate when the would-be recipient of a FAVOUR behaves like they missed out on something they were entitled to.

I have a childhood friend who is the most entitled person imaginable. One night over many wines she began talking about the career she would have liked if life had been different. I brightly said, I think you can tack on a years qualification to your existing degree as my sibling did it this way. I then said I didn't know all the details but suggested she email my sibling, explain I said to get in touch and ask for advice. I then forgot all about it.

Some time later I was catching up with this sibling. They were sharing three separate pieces of awful news that had come along all at once. I felt really sorry for them. Then as they were telling me they visibly jolted and said "oh!" as just remembered something followed by "that reminds me, a friend of yours contacted me that very same day looking for advice. I definitely was not in the humour for helping someone out. I felt like writing a really rude reply asking if she'd heard of Google."

We both laughed - i know they wouldn't have done something like this and the conversation moved on. Before we said bye they asked if my friend still wanted the information. I hadn't spoken to her for ages and I said "I would imagine she has looked the course up by now herself. Don't worry about it, you have enough going on"

More time passed and I was out again with Entitled Friend. Somebody asked her what she was doing with herself. She turned to me and said "well I'd be halfway through the course now if your sibling had answered me". I laughed (mistakenly assuming she was joking) and said "oh my poor sibling, you wouldn't believe the day they'd had" and shared some of the details. I fully expected some passing sympathy but instead was faced with scorn and fury.

It's now a few years on. Entitled Friend is still not pursuing any career and I hear she randomly complains to people that she would be working in a particular field if (and this is a direct quote) "X's family weren't so obsessed with keeping the route in a secret".

I hear the information thirdhand as for a multitude of similar reasons I avoid her as much as I can.

These firms are also highly regulated and often have nepotism rules

That applies everywhere.

But getting into magic circle firms requires the clear evidence of having worked your butt off and having brains

Can I make it clear that there are more law graduates than there are traineeships and that applies across the board - not just magic circle. In the dark ages when I did my law degree there were only 5 universities in Scotland which offered a law degree and most people who wanted a traineeship got one. There are now 10. I expect it's the same in England.

Nobody recruits on the basis of nepotism.

I work in big law and your sister and mum sound completely delusional about how to get a job at an elite firm. You say she wants to go to the Magic Circle, that is as competitive as it gets, they have access to an incredible pool of talent - the best students from the best universities, with loads of extra curricular activities. Most of the trainees start applying to vacation schemes and all sorts of experience when they are still in university to start build their CV (which your sister probably didn’t do considering your mum’s comment about her CV being empty).

These firms are also highly regulated and often have nepotism rules - meaning you won’t give a training contract or a nice promotion to a relative. Absolutely bonkers that your sister, who wants to enter that world, is so clueless about what it takes.

Oh yikes, I somehow missed that she was expecting a job and not just insight!

It is annoying that he couldn’t be more helpful. But getting into magic circle firms requires the clear evidence of having worked your butt off and having brains
and its not clear your sister has either. Then once you’re in you need a lot of resilience and motivation to stick it- is she even prepared to work hard? And I mean hard. Pathetic they aren’t going to your mils party, but up to them. Your mum might start to feel silly about it closer to the time- you can ask some pointed questions ‘Is it just this year or are you never going to speak to her again?’ Or ‘perhaps it’s for the best, if she got into a magic circle firm they probably wouldn’t give her the leave so she should get used to skipping all the parties.

Oh that's frustrating! Has your sister outright said what she was hoping for from the call? Just keep repeating, "I offered to put you in touch with BIL to see if he could offer advice. I'm sorry it wasn't helpful, but there's nothing more I can do!"

A lot of young people get encouraged to set up networking calls without having a clear goal. I've spoken to a lot of friends' siblings/children about my industry (not a high earning one but a popular 'dream job') and there's such a difference between those who are obviously interested and had specific questions, and those who don't really know why they're on the call. If BIL is always at work, even giving up a short amount of time is somewhat helpful!

I'm a partner in a large, non legal aid commercial and private client regional firm. Your sister sounds completely clueless about, well just about everything involved with, getting a career in law.

It's never a good idea to become too involved in what is basically nepotism. It can backfire on the person who has helped & can end up interfering with their own career,especially if the person they recommend causes problems. My DH has been put in positions like this in the past. He always responds with I'm happy to provide references but never within his own workplace.

I would apologise again to your mother & sister explaining you would love to have helped further but unfortunately youve since found out it's not something you have any say in or control over.

This is very accurate. I’m a Partner in the London office of a US law firm and it’s hard to get a training contract anywhere in the city. It’s incredibly competitive. There are plenty of places to get online experience these days - almost all law firms offer this now. She doesn’t need to use contacts, she just needs to knuckle down and focus on her applications. And, to be frank, if she doesn’t have a stellar CV (excellent school grades plus a 2:1 or 1st at a Russell/red brick or Oxbridge) with great extra curricular activities she’ll struggle.

My understanding/ experience is that law firms have such a rigorous and transparent recruitment process nowadays, it's very rare that one bigwig lawyer can make the call/ decide to recruit anyway (ie despite his position, very unlikely he's able to employ your DS).

If your DSis was expecting a job, or even work experience, off the back of that call then I suspect her lack of insight into the legal world and Magic Circle firms was very obviously to your BiL very quickly. I suspect his advice would have been centred around finding out about the firms she wants to work in if she’s serious about applying, which may not have gone down well.

Someone working all hours and earning mega bucks at a Magic Circle firm may not actually be in any sort of management position. And if they are, all the more reason they will not be offering work to a family member.

Advice from the wise: she needs to apply for paralegal jobs as well as training contracts, making sure she knows the firms she applies to and the areas of work they do really well, and she needs to evidence why she wants to do the work and why she’d be good at it (not just I want to be a lawyer…)

I have to agree with this, the ones I know would not break easily

Ex magic circle solicitor here, I left to work overseas and ending up staying here I get where your BIL is coming from. The amount of family members who expected me to get jobs for their spoilt entitled off spring was endless and some people still ask me today to get in touch with my old contacts but I won;t. . It really was horrible and to be fair, I quite often forgot to call them back as I was so busy. People then called me a snob. The point was I worked my ass off to get into the City. My parents weren't lawyers and I got in because I had fantastic A level grades, went to a top uni and worked with no salary at another magic circle firm for six months and waited tables in a local restaurant near my parents house. Sorry but I blame your mother. How dare she treat you that way. It's her fault your sister is so entitled. Of course it's tough out there and she should get a job off her own back not asking for favours. Your BIL can never get her a job at a magic circle firm - that's not how it works. It was like that 20 years ago and it's like that today.

Was info offered to her via phone call and she didn't consider it useful as she was expecting a job offer which didn't materialise.

Sorry but your sister is living in fantasy land. To get into the magic circle firms, you need to have some sort of flair and outstanding achievements behind you. Just because you have an LLM, means nothing. Does she have work experience? Did she get a first in her degrees? What has she done besides study? To work there you either have to be the creme de la creme or ur dad owns the firm. Don't expect handouts as their interview process is likely to be very intense.

Yanbu, your Dsis was probably expecting a job following that phone call, which is why your mum and sister perceive the phone call to be unhelpful. Given her attitude, she wouldn't last in a job like that.

Your Mum and DSIS have unrealistic expectations and your mum cannot handle adversity and/or agreeing to disagree.l in a grown up manner.
It's an unfortunate combination but take comfort in the fact that it's them not you.

This is exactly like my mother and sister.

I got accused of all sorts when I pointed out that my sister with no work experience whatsoever did not meet the essential criteria to be applying for a curator job at an internationally renowned art gallery.

I do think though you should try to get DH to speak to BIL to get a realistic idea of how this went from his perspective.

Most large (magic circle) firms have anti nepotism rules. DH is a senior partner in a big, international firm, and can't even give our own (school age) kids a few days of work experience. It's a good thing, imo. Nepotism absolutely used to be rife. One woman I trained with had a very poor degree from a very unimpressive university, but her brother was a partner at our firm, and as a result, not only did she get a training contract, but she also got all the best seats on the trainee rotation and was fast tracked into partnership despite her lack of ability. It was bloody frustrating for those of us who put the work in.

No good deed goes unpunished, OP. I think people have unrealistic ideas about the help people can give in these circs. There’s a perception that a contact can get you a job, or at least a foot in the door. Can’t speak for smaller firms but at bigger firms that isn’t how it works any more- decisions are made at arm’s length and objectively.

I’ve offered to talk to applicants before and my experience is that some people just lose interest when they realise that a talk is all I can offer- I’m not going to pull strings and couldn’t if I wanted to. It’s a complete misunderstanding of how the industry works based on stereotypes that are 60 years out of date. I have great sympathy for your BIL if that’s how they were with him.

"
It is one of those industries where knowing people can be very helpful when it comes to getting pupilage."

This was true in the past but really isn't now, at least for most of the legal industry. The small, family -run firms might still hold to nepotism but in most chambers and big law firms there are strict protocols to prevent it. Work experience has to be applied for centrally, rather than because you know someone. Job application are often "blind" so the assessors do not know name (often an indicator of sex and ethnicity) or educational institutions during the application process. Law still has a long way to go before it is a socially mobile profession, but it has largely left the nepotism of the past behind. My guess would be that the BIL told the OP's sister to apply through the standard process and she was disappointed with that, but that is probably the only option he had and the right thing to do.