A new mood of egalitarianism is sweeping the profession just as higher tuition fees are likely to reduce social mobility
It has been a while since non-graduates routinely provided legal services. The last time was after the second world war, when a shortage of solicitors saw a generation of legal clerks taken into the partnerships of their law firms. Since then, a huge rise in the number of people going to university has made fee-earning roles at law firms the near-exclusive preserve of graduates. These days, many paralegals even have postgraduate qualifications.
But things could be about to change, with the removal of the undergraduate fee cap next year set to spawn a host of new work-while-you-train options – spurring a comeback in school leavers entering the law directly. Indeed, a couple of recent developments suggest this process has already begun.
Last week Gordons, one of the largest law firms in Yorkshire, launched a legal apprenticeship for school leavers that will allow them to qualify as lawyers without attending university. The four-year programme, which will run alongside the firm's graduate trainee scheme, will see five apprentices paid an annual salary of £9,620 while being trained up as legal executives – an alternative rank of lawyer which can be attained without a degree.
The move follows the recently announced partnership between the national law firm Irwin Mitchell and the Institute of Legal Executives (Ilex), under which non-lawyer staff will receive legal training, providing a pathway for school leavers who join the firm in administrative positions to qualify as lawyers.
The government's hope is that initiatives like these will mitigate the likely negative effect on social mobility of the new undergraduate fee regime, which will almost certainly result in fewer students from poorer backgrounds going to university. To encourage more similar schemes, the business secretary, Vince Cable, has pledged to increase the funding of vocational training by £222m a year, potentially creating an extra 100,000 state-subsidised apprenticeships. At present there is no formal law apprenticeship, but the National Apprenticeship Service is considering launching one. "We think the Ilex model would sit quite nicely within the government framework, and there is quite a lot of general interest in making this happen," said the Ilex chief executive, Diane Burleigh.
While state assistance with training costs would be a major help for cash-strapped legal aid firms, the reality is that it would not make a huge difference to the much better off big commercial law firms: hence the decision of Gordons and Irwin Mitchell to go ahead with their schemes before any government funding has been agreed for legal vocational training. For them, apprenticeships are already good value, with the £6,500 Gordons estimates it will cost to fully train up an apprentice lawyer comparing favourably to the £10,000-£25,000 firms typically pay to sponsor their trainees through law school.
But the pair's decision to create a formal way into law for non-graduates goes beyond a motivation to save money; training budgets at these highly profitable institutions are, after all, a relative drop in the ocean. Instead, they seem to have largely been driven by a desire to reflect a new mood of egalitarianism sweeping the profession, with the demystifying effect of the internet combining with the Legal Services Act (which has loosened the restrictions on non-lawyers joining law firms' partnerships) to take some of the sheen off the rank of solicitor. Gordons's managing partner Paul Ayre seems to have this shift in values in mind when he describes his firm's apprenticeship scheme as "an anticipation of a legal market where the old distinctions become irrelevant".
Will other big law firms follow? A quick glance at what's going on, and you would assume they would be foolish not to. But opening up a route into the law that is more usually associated with much lower paid blue-collar jobs doesn't come without risks – particularly at the highest end of the profession, where lawyers' academic credentials are likely to always carry a premium. Whatever the future holds, the bottom line is that a multinational organisation looking for representation on a "bet the company" deal, or a wealthy individual in need of advice on their multimillion-pound divorce, will always be more likely to plump for the top Oxbridge-educated solicitor over the top legal executive without a degree.
Tellingly, all of the City law firms I contacted for this article declined to comment. I don't blame them. Who wants to dwell on the awkward idea that an elite firm which opened itself up to non-graduate apprentices could end up losing work?
Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education