Giving students a valuable insight into the world of work, Slater and Gordon Lawyers recently hosted a team from Salford University.
The data science masters students spent 10 weeks at the firm’s flagship Manchester office, shadowing the company’s own data analysts and working with them on a series of projects.
Suzanne Coumbaros, who heads up the data science department at Slater and Gordon and spearheaded the innovative partnership with data and analytics firm Eden Smith, said: “This was an exciting opportunity for students to get some real hands-on experience and I think they found it really valuable.
“We hosted five students and gave them a variety of projects to work on including how likely a case was to be successful, using everything from population and geographic information to age, enquiry information, client data and generic information from population demographics and the Post Office.”
Much of the work the students did involved crunching mass amounts of data to build models to predict outcomes of cases for clients based on their unique circumstances.
Suzanne added: “The data they helped to collect will enable us to give far more clarity to the client about their journey, likelihood of success, how long the case might take, what it might cost but also how much compensation is likely. All of this helps a client understand and be more aware and involved in the progression of their case. Our data management vision is to reduce costs, deliver better customer outcomes and improve efficiency.
“Preserving client confidentiality and privacy is our top priority, so the students were tasked with analysing anonymised data trends and publicly available information from sources such as the census, government studies and research papers to build up really detailed computer models. We’ll be able to use these to predict various things such as the chances of case successes.”
Placements were organised by Eden Smith under its Nurture initiative.
Lucy Lynch, head of graduate programs at the firm, said: “Being able to have real experience in the world of work makes a huge difference to a student. When they finish their studies, to be able to go out and say they’ve worked with a large firm like Slater and Gordon looks great on their CV.”
