What about firms that can’t afford to promote social mobility?
Accustomed as I am to receiving gloomy news about legal aid and vulnerable people being denied access to justice, a press release heralding a rare piece of good news brightened my inbox this week.
The email, sent on behalf of BPP Law School, US firm Reed Smith, Barclays Bank and the Black Lawyers Directory, announced that two London students had won the chance of a free place to study law at BPP.
David John from Camden School and Nazifa Maher Chowdhury from Mulberry School for Girls in Tower Hamlets won the ‘Your break in the law’ competition – a pioneering project to promote social mobility and diversity in the legal sector.
The programme was devised to give talented A-level students from non-traditional and black and minority ethnic backgrounds a route in to the profession. The pair will also receive work experience and mentoring from Reed Smith and Barclays’ in-house legal team.
This is welcome and a well-earned opportunity for the two students concerned – but it got me thinking.
It’s all well and good for global law firms and FTSE 100 companies to invest in the lawyers of the future, to ensure their sector of the profession is open to the brightest and best from socially diverse backgrounds. These efforts are laudable.
But how can the legal aid sector compete? Low fee rates and uncertainty over how the government will seek to procure publicly funded legal services in future mean many firms are struggling to remain financially viable. Unsurprisingly, the number of training contracts offered by legal aid firms has fallen dramatically. And to add insult to injury, earlier this year the Ministry of Justice axed the scheme that gave grants to legal aid firms to help fund tuition and training contracts.
We could therefore end up with a perverse outcome. The wealthiest clients and global companies will in future be advised by lawyers who come from all walks of life, while the poorest people who cannot afford to pay for legal advice will be served only by lawyers from privileged backgrounds and who are not representative of society as a whole. I cannot believe that is what social mobility tsar Alan Milburn wants to see.
It is right that the government should be urging law firms to do their utmost to reach out to their communities and offer financial assistance to aspiring lawyers. Many firms will do so. But economic reality means that many others just won’t be able to afford it.
Comments
Social mobility
I agree with a lot of this comment but wonder why social mobility has become such a trendy idea. Most high street firms are finding it hard to survive (in the west Midlands area anyway) without having to pretend to pursue social mobility policies. Firms want to see high quality applicants for jobs whatever their social background. Sadly they do not see enough high quality applicants full stop. At the moment this means that the poorest get the least good quality advice.Sometimes I think smaller firms are criticised unfairly for not being able to assist these politically driven policies, whereas the priority should be whether the firm provides a good service to its clients.
Government should look to schools and universities to prepare future lawyers rather than expect the hard worked profession to solve social problems. This is definitely not to say that firms don't have a place in their communities, but why have the concepts of fair competition and excellence been dropped??
Social mobility and young legal aid lawyers
I share Catherine Baksi’s concerns and fear that, given the prevalence among policy-makers at the MoJ and LSC of a ‘bottomless pit of lawyers’ mindset and against a backdrop of fiscal restraint, we must be pessimistic about the government doing anything meaningful to encourage social diversity in access to the legal profession. I would argue that, in the public interest and with an eye to developing the next generation of legal aid lawyers, we as a profession should take a lead.
I think there may be mileage in developing a student caseworker scheme to provide a structured framework for LPC students and graduates en route to qualifying as solicitors to be engaged in legal aid work (at a suitable level and under supervision) while earning to fund their studies. Such a scheme could help to address the twin problems of:
• access to the legal profession, characterised by
o the lack of any public funding for post-graduate professional training (LPC, BVC);
o a worsening lack of social diversity in entry to the profession; and
o a scandalous mismatch between the high volume of debt-laden LPC graduates turned out each year and the available training contract places in the job market, offering a raw deal each year for thousands of frustrated students; and
• lack of adequate civil & family legal aid provision in many areas caused by continued erosion in the CLS supplier base and sustained unmet need.
It would be aimed at LPC students (full and part-time) and graduates seeking full-time employment under Work Based Learning or, currently, as part of or in preparation for a training contract. The College of Law and other LPC course providers could support the scheme by harmonising their legal aid elective with the work-based element and providing enhanced skills training so that scheme participants could offer an attractive resource to legal aid providers, capable of ‘hitting the ground running’.
Unsustainable Profession
Since its inception in 2005, Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) has engaged with the Legal Services Commission and Ministry of Justice in order to put forward the views of the next generation of legal aid lawyers. We have been extremely concerned by the dwindling opportunities for juinor lawyers, and particularly those who are not financially supported by parents or private incomes. It seems to us that sustainability of the profession must be one of its key tenets if we are to realise access to justice for future generations. YLAL has campaigned extensively on the increasing need for a sustainable profession and lack of social mobility, but it seems that despite our best efforts 'meltdown' has arrived.
Prior to the recent legal aid cuts fiasco, YLAL undertook detailed research which showed that many candidates from low-income families cannot not even contemplate a career in legal aid. The extortionate cost of professional courses, the lack of subsidised training opportunities, the ubiquitous requirement for copious (often unpaid) work experience, and the scarcity of job opportunities means that junior lawyers dedicated to helping ordinary people who cannot afford legal fees have become less and less representative of the people they choose to represent. Any advances in terms of social mobility within the profession are quickly reversing, at an even more accelerated rate than in other professions given the poor pay and dire job prospects currently on offer to young legal aid lawyers.
The situation was appalling six months ago, and has sadly worsened with the latest round of cuts, as identified by Catherine Baksi in the above article. A few years ago, after much pressure from YLAL, the LSC announced a training contract sponsorship scheme which provided financial assistance to a limited number of firms and students on the road to qualification. The LSC training contract scheme was successful and massively oversubscribed. Until recently the very existence of the scheme was always the first (and usually only) defence proferred by Carolyn Regan and government ministers whenever challenged on the lack of opportunities being given to junior practictioners and concerns regarding social mobility. Sadly, it is no more, as the training contract scheme was one of Ken Clarke's first legal aid victims. The decision to axe the scheme was questionable given the relative savings, the clear U-turn on the previous government's committment to improving social mobility, and seems especially harsh given the huge number of disincentives for committed and talented candidates entering the profession.
Social mobility is not 'a trendy idea'. It is an essential feature of a healthy and democratic society. Whilst so many firms are fighting to stay afloat, it is understandable that their priority is not necessarily the next generation of practitioners. However it is deeply regrettable that year upon year of blistering cuts to the legal aid budget has left us with a profession which is unsustainable, increasingly unattractive (even to the most committed stalwarts), and looks (at the junior end at least) more like it did 30 years ago, than 5 years ago. YLAL would welcome discussions on the student caseworker scheme proposed above, which chimes with the numerous recommendations made in our detailed report published in February 2010 on the issue of social mobility.
YLAL urge the Government to look again at the issue of social mobility, reinstate the recently abolished training contract scheme and seriously consider the recommendations put forward in our social mobility report, as previously promised.
Sara Lomri
YLAL
www.younglegalaidlawyers.org