Anger as new law graduates can't get work

Published on Saturday 26 September 2009 20:50

ONLY one in four Scottish law graduates can expect to find a job as a solicitor in the current economic climate, government figures have revealed.

The stark statistic reveals the depths of an employment crisis facing trainee lawyers in Scotland, many of whom are paying more than 5,000 for a diploma in legal practice only to have their training contracts torn up or be released by firms after qualifying.

The crisis has brought an unprecedented attack on universities from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who attacked them for raising students' hopes by continuing to offer places on diploma courses, despite the drop in available training contracts.

At a meeting with the Law Society of Scotland, which represents solicitors, MacAskill said he was "unimpressed" by the attitude of law schools and expressed concern they were not putting the needs of students first.

The concerns of the minister – a lawyer himself – are revealed in government minutes obtained under Freedom of Information legislation.

The minutes state: "(MacAskill] was unimpressed by the attitude of those involved in the training of new solicitors and felt that education was currently driven by the needs of the universities rather than the needs of the students."

They continue: "There was a discussion about how universities should be listening to the profession and shouldn't be raising students' hopes and dreams in the current economic climate."

The minutes also reveal the Scottish Government estimates only 25 per cent of graduates with an LLB degree are likely to go on and work as a solicitor at the present time.

Last year, some 700 LLB graduates with the diploma in legal practice fought for 592 training places with firms. This year, the number of openings is expected to drop considerably.

Meanwhile, Scotland on Sunday understands the number of places on university diploma courses has remained close to the 774 that were offered in 2008-09.

The situation has angered young lawyers. Sanaa Shahid, 25, recently graduated with a diploma from the Glasgow Graduate School of Law but has found herself working in a bank while she applies for legal jobs.

Shahid said she shared MacAskill's concern. "If I had known this was going to be the position, I would have thought again about doing the diploma," she said.

"Next year, there will be the same amount of competition, if not more, so if I don't find a traineeship this year, I will be thinking 'what a waste'."

Shahid said she had applied to law firms throughout the country. "I would go on to the directory on the Law Society website and literally sit there and make 40 to 50 phone calls a day," she said. "Some would say 'give us your CV', but they wouldn't get back to you. At this moment in time, I am looking for anything at all. I am willing to relocate anywhere."

Her experience is shared by another diploma graduate, who worked as an unpaid intern at a large Scottish firm and went through a series of interviews before being told the traineeship she had applied for was no longer available.

The woman, who did not want to be named, claimed her university had offered no specific career advice. "They said, 'We are training you to be lawyers', and there was no mention of jobs or anything.

"The universities shouldn't be taking the students' money. It is 5,200 to do the diploma and it is 300 for the materials, and they are churning them out. There are kids sitting in a lecture theatre now that are hoping to start a traineeship next September, with me and all my friends still sitting around."

President of the Law Society of Scotland, Ian Smart, said he was concerned so many students were being trained when job opportunities were few.

"In our opinion, there are too many people joining LLB degrees with false illusions about where this is going to lead them," he said. "The (one in four] statistic is probably a fair assessment of where students who are coming out at the moment are, but, to be fair, we are at the very bottom of a slump."

He added: "We have a dialogue with (the universities] and we have to accredit their degrees, but we don't have control over them. We are not allowed to control the number of people who get LLBs."

However, universities denied they were offering too many training places.

Douglas Mill, director of legal practice at Glasgow University, said they were aware of the need to dampen expectations. "The law degree is a great degree to do, but it does not have, as it did in the 70s, 80s and early 90s, the 95 per cent conversion rate into being a solicitor and advocate," he said.

"That message has gone out, and most of the youngsters are quite understanding of that. I have never heard anything other than realistic career advice."

He went on: "All the Law Society is able to do – and it has been doing – is ensure that the universities put out health warnings to the students. That is the lesson of the last recession, which was the first to happen since the introduction of the diploma and the upswing in the growth."

Mill said the government's concern was understandable. "Law is no different from any other business sector these days," he said. "It is a complex situation. The unprecedented recession bit hard and deep within a year, whereas, from start to finish, it takes five years to produce a trainee."