Fears over child care lawyer shortage
A shortage of child care solicitors has led to a rise in the use of unqualified paralegal staff to present cases on behalf of local authorities, the Gazette has learned.
Jordan Gooch, public sector consultant at recruiters Badenoch & Clark, said there has been a significant increase in the amount of child care work over the last 18 months to two years following the introduction of the Public Law Outline and the Baby P case.
‘Because of this there are more job vacancies at local authorities than there are solicitors to cover them, which has led to a rise in the use of unqualified paralegal staff,’ he added.
Gooch said local authorities were increasingly making use of powers contained in the Local Government Act 1972 to enable unqualified staff to present cases in court. ‘Because there are more jobs than there are candidates, some of our clients have to compromise,’ he said.
George Eddon, principal lawyer for North Yorkshire County Council, said: ‘I’m aware of this trend among some councils for financial reasons, but it’s a policy I’d be wary of because of the nature of the cases.’
Chris Goulden, partner at Bristol firm TLT and member of Resolution’s national children committee, said: ‘It is a very worrying trend, and one which is also happening in criminal cases, with the Crown Prosecution Service having to defend its use of non-lawyers to prosecute cases.
‘The way the Legal Services Commission is going to be financing child care cases means that there will be an increase in the use of paralegals by parents’ solicitors too,’ said Goulden.
‘It’s a concern across the board that there’s an increased use of non-qualified staff in sensitive and complex cases concerning the safety of children,’ he added.
Association of Lawyers for Children co-chair Piers Pressdee QC said: ‘Children cases should be done by people who know what they are doing and have a high level of experience. I’d be worried if inexperienced and inexpert practitioners were doing this type of work.’
However Uma Mehta, chair of the Law Society’s children law sub-committee, said the provision to grant rights of audience to unqualified staff was ‘not a problem’.
She said: ‘Local authorities don’t send just anyone to court – only those with adequate experience and under supervision. They are very experienced people doing routine stuff.
‘The wider problem is the recession and the funding cutbacks that mean legal aid firms are not taking on trainees or qualified solicitors, but people who have passed the bar course or the legal practice course, but haven’t managed to do the final bit of their training because no one will take them on,’ she said.
Comments
My opinion on 'Fears over childcare lawyer shortage'.
After reading 'fears over childcare lawyer shortage' I was not surprised in the slightest to discover that there is an increased use of non-qualified staff dealing with these types of cases. Whilst I am not critisising the work of paralegals I feel that students who have finished their LLB Law degree do not have a chance to become family lawyers. I myself have finished the LLB Law degree but unfortunately could not raise the funds to become enrolled on the expensive Legal Practise Course. Whilst working hard throughout school, college and university I feel that my degree in Law is a waste of effort, time and debt that I now have to live with. Unless you come from a rich background or have well off parents it is very hard to raise the £9,500 that is required to undertake the Legal Practise Course. However, I understand that students can become sponsored by law firms amongst other things but that again is subject to the very few. Not only those with good results but those individuals who have parents or friends in the legal work field actually are lucky enough to become lawyers. It sickens me that the Government will only allow individuals to have access to student loans from the Local Authorities to undertake the LLB Course at University whilst leaving them in an unstable financial situation after graduating with little chance of finding that well paid job. It is us struggling to make ends meet which the individuals from the rich background are the individuals who will succeed in this vicious circle.
It is therefore my point that the majority of Paralegals have had no choice but to take the role that many see as a 'solicitor in their own right but an excuse for firms to pay them less'. I am certain that if these individuals were paid more then they would have the means to save to undertake the Legal Practise Course. It is all well and good noting the effects of the recession but what about people like myself who are struggling to get by working as a legal secretary?
I have now come to the opinion that a Law degree is not all that it is cracked up to be and unless something is done about this them this 'worrying trend' of Paralegals dealing with childcare cases will continue and only get worse. My thought is that there are very intelligent Paralegals whom through no fault of their own cannot gain the 'label' of a Solicitor whilst most know exactly how to do the exact same job. Unless the Government do something about this nothing is going to change.
Perhaps Ceri should do what
Perhaps Ceri should do what everybody else does, and obtain a professional and career development loan from her bank. I find it insulting that she suggest most lawyers have only managed to qualify through having friends and relatives who are lawyers. I did it on my own. I worked full time during my degree, paid my mortgage, looked after my son (aged 7 when I started and I was a lone parent) and obtained monies for my LPC through professional loans from the bank. Rich parents - if only . . .. I also worked in the periphery of law for 3 years to gain experience after my degree.
Yes it's hard. Who said it was easy? And please can somebody tell me what the government has to do with it?
I think that it is all well
I think that it is all well and good that you were able to obtain a professional and career development loan however they are not available to everyone. I also take my hat off to you for doing this whilst studying part time, working full time, looking after your seven year old child and finding time to study. I myself also worked everyday of the week whilst studying full time to pay for everyday demands. However, unless you have good credit then you have no hope of gaining a career development loan and that is through no fault of my own.
I also believe that your interpretation of my comment with regards to 'most lawyers having only managed to qualify through having friends and relatives who are lawyers' has been read in incorrect terms. To qualify you have to have the means of funding not friends and relative whom are laywers. I work in a law firm myself and like I said unless the mean are available there is no hope! The firm could fund the course but only a selective few have the means to do that in such present climate.
On your last question, 'what does the Government have to do with it'. If there was more money (loan wise) available for career progression within the Local Authorities then many more individuals would be able to qualify and undertake the BVC or LPC and I never stated it was easy, its not, its a very demanding area as you yourself know!
Childcare Lawyer shortage
I am afraid I have little sympathy for the position advanced by Ceri. The profession has always been tough (as are many others). I worked for several years for free to even get into it and I was very lucky and pleased to be able to do it. There are no guarantees that debts can be paid or anything else - and again I do not see what the government has to do with it.Nobody forced us to choose this area of work did they ?
On the broader point though, what I do wonder is why local authorities are reluctant to allow generalist solicitors with solid local authority/public law experience to take up these childcare roles rather than relying upon unqualified paralegals ? Childcare roles do not appear to be open to such lawyers at all.
I think you have hit the nail
I think you have hit the nail on the head with your last point. Like many people I am unfortunately unemployed at the moment however I spent 18 months as a paralegal and six months as a trainee with a local authority undertaking childcare work at the beginning of my career. Yes it is a few years ago (four) since I practised childcare but until my redundancy in October I had worked as a solicitor, all be it in a different field, and certainly feel that I have the skills and experience to go back to childcare. I have been put forward for numerous such positions both as a solicitor and as a paralegal throughout Yorkshire over the last six months and each time the feed back is I don't have enough experience. Well surely I have more experience, and certainly more skills, than those fresh out of university paraegals? The point is, there are qualified people wanting to take up the challenge of working in childcare but the local authorities just aren't willing to invest and this is at the expense of children and families in desperate need of help which I would have thought to be too greater risk given the media spotlight which has been attracting attention to this for the last few years. Perhaps a rule change is in order take away the special rights of audience given to non-qualified council employees? I do know that non-qualified staff do work hard for local authorities and without them legal departments across the land would be falling apart but surely a rule change would encourage local authorities to invest in their existing unqualified staff and would give those of us who are trying to help ourselves by being prepared to switch fields a chance too.
CHILDCARE LAWYERS
Sally,
Thank you for your reply. It seems strange to me because as far as I am aware childcare proceedings are based upon public law. You would have thought that lawyers with experience of public law would have been preferable to those without qualifications. I know of several colleagues who have tried to move into this area without success.......strange indeed, a demand is there, lawyers are able and willing to meet it (probably at quite cheap cost) and nothing is done! Will anybody join the dots ?
Re Ceri
Assuming the end goal was to become a solicitor, why read law without considering the cost/funding of the LPC? If you thought that the average law firm would pay, then you clearly made a big mistake.
Forget funding issues, did you consider the difficulties in securing a training contract?
Not a good sign for a budding lawyer to overlook some basic preliminary issues.
It is my experience (via exposure to work experience individuals at my firm) that many law/LPC graduates struggle to put a basic sentence together.
Somewhat amusingly, these same individuals believe that a few pieces of paper peddled to them by an establishment closer in operation to a used car sales lot than a university, automatically entitles them to a solid career in the law. Plainly not.
Don't seek to blame others: The world owes you nothing.
Solicitors, paralegals etc
The colleges make far too much out of LPC. Northumbria Uni offers a law degree which incorporates the LPC.
There should be a corrolation between getting onto the LPC and having a job as a trainee solicitor. Time at college mixed with time at work over 2 years makes sense. Pre qualifying as an accredited police station rep on the LPC would make more trainees cost effective for legal aid crime firms.
Apart from that it's not too late Ceri to qualify as a Solicitor through the CPS or local Government or through the Courts Service or through Armed Forces sponsorship.
My advice is to retrain as a ship's carpenter and work in the South of France on luxury yachts.