Roll on Friday
A former Slaughter and May associate has been struck off for lying on a pupillage application.
Maximilian Campbell, who trained at Linklaters, applied to Erskine Chambers in 2022 while he was a 2PQE associate at Slaughter and May.
Although many sets would have taken one look at his CV and given him an interview on name recognition alone, Campbell decided that a second class degree from Cambridge University, and employment at two of the world’s most prestigious law firms, wasn’t quite good enough.
So the solicitor stated that he attained a double starred first-class degree, and that he had received several awards from the university’s law faculty including the ‘Slaughter & May Prize’ for best overall performance in his final undergraduate year.
“Prior to my legal career I read law at the University of Cambridge, with a starred first (first with distinction)”, he wrote in his application. “This strong academic record displays my ability to engage with the most challenging legal problems.”
Campbell provided details of two referees which Erskine Chambers called upon when they felt his performance in his second interview was “far below the level that one would have expected of someone with his academic credentials”.
The email address Campbell provided for one of the referees, Dr Markus Gehring of Hughes Hall at Cambridge University, was incorrect.
When Edward Davies KC, Erskine’s Head of Chambers, tracked down the correct email address, Dr Gehring told the silk that in fact Campbell had taken a second class degree.
“Unfortunately, his first year exam performance was not of the same quality due to illness. His Part II final year examinations were much more successful and he finished with an overall 2i mark but the majority of his subjects were in the upper half of the 2i cohort”, wrote Dr Gehring.
Campbell prepped the other referee, a former colleague at Linklaters, by messaging him: “Mate further to the above, I’ve whacked you down as a ‘professional reference’ for a couple of bar applications I’ve done. Hope that’s still ok? Highly unlikely they’ll call on you, if they do I’ll draft something appropriate up for you to sign.”
The Linklaters partner appears to have been less then keen to vouch for Campbell. He told Erskine Chambers he would “attend to it now” when they asked him for a reference, but none was ever received.
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His bio at his new job at MRA search in New York still contains the same lie !
