Since the Law Society's 2009 warning that the profession was oversubscribed student numbers have fallen, possibly too far
The recession-hit legal profession has spent the past couple of years trying to deter wannabes from joining its swollen ranks. "We're not telling people not to be a solicitor, but we are warning them about the risks and cost implications attached," said the Law Society in 2009, as it launched a campaign urging students to think twice about a career in law.
On the whole it has worked. Although the bar remains oversubscribed, enrolments on the legal practice course (LPC) – the year-long course law graduates must take to become solicitors, which can cost more than £13,000 – fell by 20% last year, as a belief that the country is over-lawyered took hold at schools and universities. Hartlepool sixth form college A-level law student Claire Watson, whose teachers cautioned her against pursuing a legal career, sums up the sentiment: "I've been told there are too many lawyers and that it's very hard to get a job."
But could the warnings have gone too far? Last week the College of Law (CoL), one of the main providers of the LPC, drew attention to a possible impending shortage of rookie solicitors. According to the CoL's research, the number of LPC graduates is now falling faster than the number of trainee jobs, meaning a shortfall of trainees could arise as early as this year. By 2012, the CoL says, there could be 14% more traineeships than there are graduates eligible to fill them.
Of course, it's in the interests of the CoL — a private law school operating in a highly competitive legal education market — to come up with findings like these. But history suggests it may have a point. As the profession emerged from the recession of the early 1990s, an oversupply of law graduates morphed rapidly into a shortage between 1995 and 1997.
This wasn't a big deal at first, as there was a backlog of jobless graduates from previous years to fill the empty places. If the CoL's predictions prove correct, this process is likely to repeat itself: good news for the thousands of LPC graduates currently without training contracts. The concern is what happens after that.
In the late 1990s and 2000s a pay war ensued — which saw junior solicitor salaries rocket from £30,000 to as much as £100,000 — as firms fought it out for the best graduates.
Another wave of dramatic pay inflation looks unlikely this time around, though, thanks to a vast pool of cheap potential recruits in emerging markets like India — overlooked in the past, but increasingly seen as a desirable option by London law firms whose outlook has become far less Anglo Saxon-centric. Already Clifford Chance has hired a number of lawyers from its legal process outsourcing centre in Gurgaon, India. If this trend accelerates, there could be serious consequences for the future of the profession in this country.
CoL chief executive Nigel Savage believes the Law Society needs to change tack fast to prevent a drift away from law among British graduates. "They should be sending out a much more positive message, but unfortunately the mood is still doom and gloom," he says, adding that he believes there is a lack of "strategic thinking" from legal professional bodies on the issue of graduate recruitment.
Professor Richard Moorhead from Cardiff Law School agrees: "It's a confidence thing. The more doubt the profession shows about its ability to provide students with a safe route into employment, the more it will lose people."
However, the Law Society thinks its message of caution continues to be appropriate. Chief executive Desmond Hudson sees it as his obligation "to inform students about the realities of the expensive and demanding qualification process". These realities, he adds, "are true regardless of the interpretations given to available or predicted statistics". Hudson also challenges the CoL to publish the amount of its LPC students who secure training contracts – data that many law schools refuse to provide.
This tension between the liberals and conservatives of the UK legal profession is long-running; Savage, who is close to several City law firms, has railed against the Law Society throughout a career spanning roles at various law schools. The stakes in this latest dispute could be the highest yet.
Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education