I read with regret that the Trainee Solicitors Group (TSG) has accepted the removal of the minimum salary for trainee solicitors proposed within the Law Society's training framework review. The TSG campaigned for many years to achieve the protection of its members on this issue, without much support from the Law Society in the early days of the concept. Now this protection is to be abandoned at the very suggestion of it in a consultation paper.

The regulation of training within the proposed framework for the training of solicitors presents many challenges, and it is difficult to see how the minimum salary could be regulated when so many new routes to qualification would be open. But these proposals are still in their infancy. The detail of regulation is yet to be finalised and it is likely to be many years before a workable model of regulation is accepted by the profession.


These are also controversial proposals and are likely to be subject to much negotiation if they are to proceed through the Law Society Council; they may be much watered down in the process. It is too early to remove support for the minimum salary. It has not even been decided what routes to qualification would be accepted by the profession.


Without seeing the profession's views or the meat on the bones of mere proposals, it is too early to abandon a protection that was hard won and is easily given away. Let us see what routes to qualification are accepted by the profession and how they may be regulated before we decide where the minimum salary may fit into any new regulatory framework for training solicitors.


Gary Brankin, Law Society Council member for trainee solicitors and legal practice course students