Jennifer Veitch: Jobless graduate trainees should not panic just yet

Published on Sunday 28 September 2008 19:42

UNTIL the crunch came, the biggest hurdle for law students aspiring to become practising lawyers was getting a place on the Diploma in Legal Practice course.

With half as many diploma providers as law schools, this was no mean feat.

Students who made it through this postgraduate portal could congratulate themselves that finding a traineeship would almost inevitably follow. Indeed, larger firms began to recruit so far in advance that many students secured a traineeship long before they even had completed their degree.

For those still looking by the diploma stage, the main concern was not whether they would go on to qualify as solicitors, but the type of firm they would do it with.

Would they find a firm that offered training in an area of law that interested them, or would they be stuck with conveyancing? Would the firm pay the Law Society's recommended rates, or better still, above them? Just how long would it be before they could earn enough to pay off their student loans?

This kind of angst now seems trivial compared to the stark reality of the jobs market in the legal profession. Earlier this month, the Law Society confirmed that dozens of trainees had been in touch for advice after losing their traineeships or having them delayed as a result of the downturn in the economy.

When many firms across the country have been faced with difficult decisions to lay off experienced paralegals or even solicitors, it is easy to see why graduates who are not even in the door have proven to be a soft target.

Since many dejected and rejected trainees won't yet have contacted the society for advice, it is likely that many more will have suffered.

Many will doubtless wonder whether four or five years of study – or even longer if they did an LLB part-time – has really been worth the slog.

The message from the society is not to panic; diploma graduates effectively have two and a half years to find a traineeship after finishing their studies. Even then, it is possible to ask for a waiver of the regulation and have this extended for another year.

Relevant work experience and evidence of efforts to keep up to date with the law will help convince the society to grant this dispensation.

Of course, the trouble for those in limbo is that the longer it takes to find a training contract, the more competition there will be from shiny new graduates coming through the ranks.

Yet could there be a silver lining for the profession?

Firms that have been overlooked by students in the past are now finding their e-mail in-boxes filled with speculative applications and one graduate has even placed a "traineeship wanted" advert in this month's Journal.

Many graduates who wouldn't have contemplated leaving Edinburgh or Glasgow will now jump at the chance of going somewhere – anywhere – that will give them a job.

Theoretically at least, this could go some way towards helping to address problems with access to justice.

But for small firms in rural areas who struggle to recruit qualified assistants, traineeships are a much more difficult ask; quite apart from the financial implications, not all firms can offer the full range of training required by the society.

While the society's review of education and training is ongoing, now is the time for swift action to explore flexible ways to support smaller firms to take on trainees. Firms could be supported to share training, or traineeships could be created that qualify solicitors to practise in only certain areas of the law.

Ultimately the society cannot dictate the number of traineeships any more than it can regulate the number of solicitors – competition must prevail – and as one law school head said to me, law students are not immune from the "cold winds of economics".

In reality it has been a long time since getting an LLB was an automatic passport to the profession or indeed since qualification as a solicitor sealed a lucrative career.

But, harsh as this may be for those who can't currently progress towards qualification, the downturn may be good news for some young lawyers. Those lucky graduates who have recently started training may benefit from reduced competition for jobs when the economy recovers.