We want to open school-age students' eyes to opportunities, careers and futures that they wouldn’t normally get the chance to see

Providing fair access across the board is vital if the legal profession is to become a true reflection of wider society. But the reality is that it is harder now than 30 years ago to get into a profession like law. PRIME is a commitment to change that.

Founded by 23 firms, and The Sutton Trust, PRIME is a commitment to provide fair access to quality work experience for school-age students from less privileged backgrounds. We want to reach hundreds of diverse firms throughout the UK.

By signing up to PRIME, your firm will be committing to provide work experience for talented, ambitious and motivated students in the full range of careers available in the legal sector - from Law and IT to Marketing and HR. By opening the doors to the profession you will also be opening your firm to real talent, broadening the pool from which to hire the professionals of tomorrow.

But PRIME is not just about finding the professionals of the future. Our goal is to offer those from less privileged backgrounds the chance that their ambition and talents deserve. We want to open people's eyes to opportunities, careers and futures that they wouldn't normally get the chance to see.

PRIME isn't just a word. It's a commitment that comes with a promise. The aim is to provide 2,500 quality work experience places across the country by 2015, which equates to broadly 50% of training contracts in the UK.

If we want to effect change we need to monitor our progress to ensure we are meeting the targets we have set out. To do this we have partnered with the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) who will provide an independent evaluation to ensure that PRIME is meeting its aim.

To cover the cost of this, each firm who signs up will be required to contribute to the cost of the NFER evaluation of their own work experience programme once it is up and running. The figure for this evaluation will be dependent on the total number of firms signed up, so the more firms that sign-up the lower the cost will be. NFER will calculate the total number of firms signed up and determine the proposed evaluation fee for each firm. For further information view the monitoring information below.

PRIME has linked up with organisations such as Pathways to Law, The Brokerage City Link and SEO London who help provide opportunites for students to participate on work experience programmes.

To join PRIME click here,