Since 1960, when 19,069 solicitors held practising certificates (PCs), the number of solicitors with PCs rose by 2,000 a year on average to 117,862 by the end of July 2010.
This number increased every year for 50 years except for 1971 and 1983.
Even with the economic difficulties of 2009/10, the number of solicitors with PCs rose by 2.1%.
It is important to note that the number of solicitors on the roll and the number with PCs fluctuate during the year.
The number on the roll rises as more solicitors are admitted, but falls in June when the Solicitors Regulation Authority removes solicitors without PCs who fail to pay the fee to keep their names on the roll.
Moreover, although the number of solicitors with PCs rises as the SRA issues PCs during the year, it falls each November because not all solicitors renew their PCs.
According to the SRA, 120,917 solicitors had PCs in September 2010.
This number fell to 117,427 by the end of December 2010. By early February 2011 the number had risen to 117,957.
The Law Society’s Annual Statistical Report (ASR) states how many solicitors with PCs are not attached to organisations such as firms, commerce and industry, and local government, but it does not show how many solicitors on the roll are unemployed, so the picture is incomplete.
In July 2010, there were 5,803 unattached PC holders, so 112,059 PC holders were working as solicitors at that time.
In 2010, 5% more solicitors with PCs were working than in 2009. This is the highest percentage increase in the number of working solicitors since 1999. Despite the recession, a higher percentage of solicitors with PCs was working in 2010 than at any time since 1999 – and a record number of practising solicitors was working too.
Taken together, these statistics do not suggest that the profession is too large.
Has the number of practising solicitors peaked? The ASR reveals that more unemployed solicitors retain their PCs during a period of economic expansion than in harder economic times.
Fewer unemployed solicitors have paid their PC fees since 2008 as economic confidence has fallen – though this may not be an issue in future because in 2010 the SRA reduced significantly the PC fee payable by an individual unattached solicitor.
The profession also faces threats to its traditional work. Further cuts to legal aid are imminent.
The increased use of legal process outsourcing and the continued slump in the property market pose significant challenges to solicitors’ work.
Their businesses face fresh challenges from 6 October when the first alternative business structures may be permitted to compete with solicitors’ firms.
All these issues will affect the size of the profession.
Routes to qualification
The profession has grown because over the years more people have joined it than left it. It is therefore worth exploring how people can qualify as a solicitor and how they do qualify:
Since 1976/77, there have been four principal routes to qualification as a solicitor:
- The qualifying law degree (QLD) route – obtaining a QLD + Legal Practice Course (LPC) + training contract;
- The Common Professional Examination (CPE) route – obtaining a university degree which is not a QLD + CPE + LPC + training contract;
- The fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives (FILEX) route – qualifying as a FILEX + LPC (with no need for a training contract); and
- The transfer route – qualified barristers in England and Wales, and qualified lawyers from elsewhere, pass the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme (QLTS), which replaced the old Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (QLTT) from September 2010 (with no need for a training contract).
Since 1996/97, 22% of admitted solicitors have followed the CPE route and 2% have taken the FILEX route. The number who followed these routes has been relatively consistent each year.
The number of admissions has risen by 50% over this period. The increase in admissions is due to more people taking the QLD and transfer routes.
The QLD is the most common route, but the proportion of newly admitted solicitors who follow it has fallen from 70% in the early 1980s to 54% today.
The proportion who follow the transfer route has risen from 6% to 22% over the same period.
While 92% of solicitors who were admitted in the early 1980s had worked under training contracts, only 76% of solicitors who are admitted today have had training contracts.
The number of annual admissions reached record levels in the most recent two years for which there are records: 8,491 in 2008/09 and 8,479 in 2009/10.
These figures do not suggest that the profession is too large. However, the number of annual admissions is volatile. Falls in the number of admissions usually occur a year or two after an economic downturn, so a fall in the number of admissions in 2010/11 is likely.
Legal Practice Course
The number of LPC places has risen by 126.8% since 1993/94 and has risen continuously.
However, it is important not to confuse the number of LPC places (14,482 in 2009/10) with the number of students enrolling on the LPC.
The total number of validated LPC places has never been filled and the number of students who enrolled on the LPC has declined each year since 2006/07, when 9,850 enrolled on the full-time and part-time courses, filling 74% of the available places. In 2009/10, only 7,631 students enrolled on the full-time LPC, according to the LPC Central Applications Board (CAB), filling 67% of the places (I do not know the figures for part-time courses).
The CAB figures for the full-time LPC in 2010/11 show enrolment fell by a further 20%. The fall in the number of LPC enrolments started before the credit crunch and has cut deeply.
This suggests that the market is adjusting to changed economic circumstances.
It is worth noting at this point that not all students pass the LPC. The ASR shows that between 1993/94 and 2008/09 the average LPC pass rate was 72.9%.
Training contracts
Is the number of training contracts remaining steady or is it falling too?
The ASR shows that the number of training contracts offered from year to year varies considerably and, unlike the number of PC holders, is sensitive to economic conditions.
This suggests that whenever firms encounter hard times they choose not to hire trainees.
The number of training contracts registered by the Law Society fell intermittently after 1993/94, before rising steadily to the peak of 6,012 registrations in 2006/07 and 6,303 in 2007/08.
The sharp fall in registrations in 2008/09 (by 8%) and 2009/10 (by 22%, which awaits confirmation) has been caused by the recession.
This trend is continuing: the SRA registered 3,914 training contracts between 1 August 2010 and 15 March 2011, 10.5% fewer than the same period last year.
Although the number of training contracts registered annually rose by 50% between 1993/94 and 2008/09, the number of training contracts that are available in any one year has been difficult to predict.
How true is it that there is a mismatch between LPC graduates and the number of training contract places?
Surprisingly, the ASR shows that since 1993/94, the total number of students who pass the LPC each year is broadly in line with the number of training contracts registered in the following year.
Although the number of LPC graduates and the number of training contracts is not synchronised (and registered training contracts exceeded the number of LPC graduates in seven of the 16 years), the surplus of LPC graduates over training contracts is very small.
Between 1993/94 and 2008/09, 87,374 students passed the LPC, according to the ASR. After subtracting 1,956 FILEX individuals, a pool of 85,418 LPC graduates was available for training contracts.
Between 1994/95 (the first year a LPC graduate could start a training contract) and 2009/10, 83,925 training contracts were registered.
There were only 1,493 more LPC graduates than registered training contracts – that is to say, 1.7% of LPC graduates failed to obtain a training contract.
The surplus of LPC graduates over training contracts only became significant in 2008/09 and 2009/10 (when, respectively, 1,669 and 1,167 more graduated from the LPC than there were training contracts).
As recently as 2007/08, more training contracts had been registered since 1994/95 than the number of LPC graduates.
The ASR does not show a mismatch between LPC graduates and available training contracts.
The consultation encompasses a wide range of potential changes, with the government looking at almost all aspects of the competition regime, including the criminal cartel offence.The Legal Services Board’s draft business plan for 2011/2012 states that it will examine ‘the current mismatch between the numbers of students completing the vocational stage of training... and the number of training contracts’.
The true picture?
That is not the whole picture, however. Significantly, the ASR data does not record the results of students who either deferred assessments or were referred in assessments and passed the LPC in later academic sessions (LPC students have five years in which to pass).
The SRA possesses this information and the Legal Services Board (LSB) should be able to obtain it. In its absence, I have calculated the likely number of students who passed the LPC eventually but were not recorded in the ASR.
I assumed that 40% of these students passed eventually (that is to say, a final pass rate of 84%). My conclusion was that by October 2009 there was an oversupply of 13,876 LPC graduates, about 12,500 more than the ASR discloses.
Many of these surplus graduates will not now be seeking training contracts. A surplus of 13,876 seems large, but it is based on speculation, not fact, and has arisen over a 16-year period.
Conclusions
The ASR data shows there has been a good match between those who passed the LPC at the first or second attempt and the number of training contracts.
Many of the 12,500 who did not pass the LPC at first but did so eventually will have obtained training contracts, after working initially as paralegals, making it harder for LPC students and graduates who follow them to obtain training contracts.
Many who are seeking training contracts passed (or will pass) the LPC at the first attempt and many who have obtained training contracts did not – this is something the SRA or LSB might look at after reflection, not as a reflex reaction.
Prospective LPC students are choosing not to qualify as solicitors at a time when there are fewer opportunities for training contracts.
The reduction in the number of training contracts has coincided with – and been caused by – the recession.
The future need for trainee solicitors is uncertain as the profession enters the new landscape of legal services provision, but its history shows that the profession is robust and adapts to changing circumstances.
It will hire higher numbers of trainee solicitors again. The question is: when?
David Dixon teaches on the LPC at Cardiff Law School and is a member of the Law Society’s education and training committee.
The committee wishes to ensure that the best possible information about the difficulties of qualifying as a solicitor is made available to students and aspiring solicitors, so they may make informed decisions about whether to seek to qualify as a solicitor and without deterring people with talent from deprived backgrounds from doing so.
Although the data in this article is the Law Society’s, the analysis and opinions are those of the author and not the views of either Cardiff Law School or the Law Society
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