SRA sells out aspiring trainees
Forget all the corporate blather about ‘partial deregulation’ - today the Solicitors Regulation Authority board chose to dump the minimum salary for trainee solicitors.
It was a gutless, thoughtless and morally reprehensible decision, taken on flimsy grounds and with little or no debate. In passing on its responsibility, the regulator will instead rely on the national minimum wage of £6.08 an hour. With tips thrown in, you’d be better off working at McDonald's flipping burgers.
The SRA has made this decision because it does not believe it is the job of a regulator to impose levels of pay. If other professions (and their trainees) can manage without it, why not the law? What an utterly spurious argument. The legal profession should be proud of being the only one to set artificial pay scales in a bid to ensure all talent can enter, no matter their circumstances.
You only need to look at the new entrants to the journalism world to see what a deregulated profession means - the wealthy can afford to ‘take a hit’ on wages whilst they train, while the rest are forced to look elsewhere. This was a policy which gave women, ethnic minorities and poor students (all threatened by the scrapping of the minimum salary, according to the SRA itself) a level playing field. Now the odds are stacked against them.
The SRA board had five options to choose from for the future of the minimum salary, from total deregulation to retaining the status quo. Not a single member spoke out decisively in favour of the minimum salary, each hiding behind the excuse of ‘it’s not our role’.
Some were woefully out of touch. One board member called it ‘fanciful’ that a student might give up on a career in the law for the sake of a lower salary for two years. But what about the rising cost of rent? Of food? Of bills? Try explaining to Tesco that you’ll pay for your shopping only once you’ve qualified as a solicitor.
During the board meeting, it was revealed that that 1,300 people had responded to an online survey. Yet a letter in the Gazette from four students, calling for the end of the minimum salary, was said to have given a ‘different perspective’ on things, according to one member. There was little mention of the reams of opposition comments filed below the letter.
The minimum salary for trainees has always been an anomalous curiosity ever since it was introduced by the Law Society in 1982. The then-regulator had two aims: to prevent the exploitation of trainees and to ensure a high calibre of entrants into the profession, unhindered by financial constrains. The SRA has now scrapped this worthy policy. It begs the question whether it has given up on those aims too.
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Comments
minimum wage for trainees
"I'm all right, Jack. Pull the ladder up."
If as a profession, we don't care about future members, then we shall deserve to continue losing status and prosperity. Although I do wonder why so many young people still want to join the profession - probably not on the High Street.
The SRA's board over relied
The SRA's board over relied on 'that letter' as it did with every sparse morsel that supported their position to abolish the minimum salary, whilst wilfully ignoring the plethora of reasoned arguments for the minimum salary to remain. Why pay more attention to a misguided, grammatically incorrect letter from four students than to the JLD's well-reasoned 50-page response unless you are scrapping the barrel for any justification, no matter how weak, to justify your decision?
Getting out what we put in
The principle issue that came to mind today when this news came out, is that trainee solicitors are given, what is considered a higher than average starting wage, as we pump more money into legal education.
For the majority of students, they will get a government loan for the first 3 years, but then to do the LPC it is arguably one of the most expensive post-graduate courses, the money has to be laid out.
The work, effort and money that is put in by students has been rewarded by a well paid and interesting job.
The long term effect could be harsh on the legal protection and its a short sighted decision by the SRA.
SRA and Trainees
This decision must have been made by those who only understand the position of trainees at City firms. For those working in legal aid practices or for smaller firms this is an absurd decision. The massive cuts to legal aid are already going to severely hamper entrants to the profession who even if they qualify will often earn the average legal aid salary of £25,000. This cut to wages will be on top of the debts incurred from university and from the LPC. It chimes with the delusive policies of the current government. Deregulate and destroy anything of value in favour of the market.
That letter was an absoloute
That letter was an absoloute joke! It started with 'we have been waiting for a TC' waiting? Come on! Do me a favour. There four clowns don't relies that waiting for TC is not going to get you no where then they go on to say they have made 300 applications copy and paste job does not work. Go out there work for free, work as a admin assistant, work as a paralegal get a foot in the door and you will be rewarded. All my friends bar few who are like these four clowns have all got TC with small high street firms and sole practioners they all got paid the minimum no problem why because they proved themselves and a sole practioners realised this person can really make a difference to my firm and with chargeable bills trainees will recover there wage for the employer. I completely agree with the above Article it is spot on. The fact is the majority of people and might I add these were students current trainees unemployed LPC graduates the JLD etc were all aginst scrapping the minimum wage apart form the four clowns who wrote that very stupid letter speaking on behalf of all of us.
So these four clowns will now wait until August 2014 when the SRA scrap the minimum wage and they will all have a TC 'waiting' for them!
The SRA have looked for any
The SRA have looked for any excuse to remove the trainee salary and that letter, albeit unrepresentative, is just what they needed.
The only justification I can find for removing the wage is the premise that doing so will open up additional training contracts, but as far as I am aware (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong) no research has been carried out with firms to see whether, without the minimum wage, they will be opening up more training contracts. Without that, there seems to be little point to this endeavour.
Whilst I do not necessarily support an artificially high salary for a trainee, the cost of training is going to make becoming a solicitor prohibitive for some. However, the issue is and always has been whether there are two many solicitors rather than whether they are affordable. There seems to be a move, particularly amongst larger firms, to utilise paralegals at a lower cost rather than trainees. Is it not then a case that rather than being unaffordable trainees are just not needed. There will always be a need for some trainees as older solicitors retire, but in a saturated market there is not the demand for the supply of trainees.
The only way forward seems to be to stop the flood of students undertaking the LPC if they do not have training contracts in place. Self-funding has always seemed foolhardy to me and instead alternative routes into the profession should be looked at. I trained under a part-time LPC and part-time training contract so that I could work alongside studying. I have known others who have trained along the ILEX route and then 'converted' to solicitors by studying the LPC but without the need for a training contract at the end.
The only advice I can give to anyone looking to move into law is to get into practice and work your way up to where you want to be by proving yourself as invaluable and studying alongside.
Another nail in the coffin of equality
So the SRA have implicitly accepted and encouraged the exploitation of trainees, whilst at the same time acknowledging that what they are doing is racist, sexist, elitist, and will reduce the talent entering the profession.
Laudable objectives for a regulatory body I suppose.
This is a joke
I think this is an absolute joke. I went into my legal studies for all of the right reasons; I worked incredibly hard, sacrificed everything that all of my friends were doing, so that I could make sure that I got a good degree. It paid off. I then added to my mounting debt by doing the LPC. 3 years later and I have only just managed to secure my first legal job. I had been working for minimum wage just so that I can contribute to my parents household, and eat; sending out application after application, only to be to be told I did not have enough experience, yet whenever I applied for summer placements I was knocked back.
Finally, I secured a fantastic position yet I have all but given up on a training contract. To find out that IF I were able to secure one, I would financiall be in the same position as I was working in a shop, with no hope of clawing out of debt or moving out and standing on my own 2 feet is an absolute joke.
Law students are getting into insurmountable amounts of debt and for what? To be told 'sorry you're only worth minimum wage'? The powers that be ought to be ashamed and have proven how out of touch they are with the way things work.
Re: Out of Touch
I read with dismay that the Minimum Salary is to be abandoned. Don't those who made the decison realise that this will harm the profession in the long term, whilst in the short term it smacks of protectionism of the worst kind ? This attitude is spineless and shame on those who are so far out of touch that they think only of themselves and not of those who have made huge financial sacrifices for nothing ! IT IS AN UTTER DISGRACE !