Making ends meet

Impoverished law students face debts of between 15,000 and 30,000.

What is more, those who do not join the largest firms are unlikely to obtain sponsorship.

And studying for a career at the bar can also be insecure.

So what is the solution? Being a part-time student may work, reports Scott Neilson

Professional debt now looms on the radar screens of most young lawyers, irrespective of whether they are students, trainees or recently qualified.

The true extent of the problem is difficult to gauge.

But in August, after a year-long survey of hundreds of students, trainees and newly qualified solicitors, the Trainee Solicitors Group (TSG) estimated that graduates who have completed one of the profession's vocational courses were likely to have amassed debts in the region of 15,000 to 30,000.

Being in the red is now as synonymous with young lawyers as long hours are with junior doctors, says Margaret Bailey, the Law Society Council member for Legal Practice Course (LPC) students and trainee solicitors, and a solicitor at Berrymans Lace Mawer in Liverpool.

'And for students already faced with mounting debt upon completion of their undergraduate degree, the need to move further into the red in order to complete the Common Professional Examination (CPE), Bar Vocational Course (BVC) or the LPC has become a real barrier to entry,' Ms Bailey says, adding that the profession is at risk of being made up almost exclusively of people from socio-economically privileged groups who do only well-paid jobs for commercial clients.

The debt mountain for students means that in the future only the confident or rich might bother to apply to law school.

'Women, ethnic minorities, mature students and people who did not graduate from Oxbridge are those least likely to obtain professional sponsorship from a firm, to help with the cost of their LPC.

Yet these are the people who will be the first to turn away from a career as a solicitor,' she says.

Furthermore, Julie Swan, head of education and training at the Law Society, says that debt is forcing young lawyers to opt for well-paid jobs in the commercial sector rather than publicly funded work such as criminal law.

'They arrive at the LPC with debts averaging 12,000.

The LPC course itself then costs from 5,000 to 8,000, plus living costs.

You may not want to go for a well-paid commercial firm.

But you may have no choice,' Ms Swan says.

The crisis is also having an impact on the country's high street practices, says Adrian Barham, secretary of the Young Solicitors Group, and an associate at Burges Salmon in Bristol.

'It is the high street law firms that provide the critical services.

But they are the least likely to be able to pay for someone's LPC.

There is a haemorrhaging from the high street, where you just don't get enough money,' Mr Barham says.

'There's even a drift away from the big City firms, where you get put under so much pressure to recoup their sponsorship of your training that you just end up thinking, "Blow this, I'll go work in industry and get a company car, an average working day, a pension and all the rest of it".

'There's a drift towards commerce and industry at the moment.

As for the bar, it's a brave person that wants to qualify into that these days.'

So what, exactly, is the profession currently doing about the problem?

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) addressed the issue in June this year, offering a three-year, 30,000 sponsorship for 100 LPC places and funding for 100 trainee places among high street firms in smaller urban and rural areas, where the LSC maintains that the shortage of new solicitors opting to work for legal aid firms is most apparent.

The grants will be targeted at practices that derive 50% of their income from legal aid.

Meanwhile, back at the bar, those students and graduates considering a career as a barrister have little cause for comfort.

Last month, the Bar Council rejected Sir Robin Mountfield's plan to impose a sliding levy on barristers' earnings to support BVC students in financial difficulties.

Bar Council chairman David Bean QC has said a set of proposals to decrease student debt will be presented within four months.

Under the current system, most graduates embark on the BVC without having first secured a pupillage.

But a scheme to bring the recruitment process forward by a year is among the options being considered.

However, Nigel Bastin, head of the Bar Council's education and training committee, points out that some chambers already recruit early.

'The suggestion is that we should encourage more to do so.

However, those that don't recruit early will require some persuasion.

Chambers like to interview students when they've had some experience of the BVC,' Mr Bastin says.

'One thing is clear - it would be very difficult for us, as a regulatory body, to tell chambers when they should recruit so that failure to comply would be a breach of professional conduct,' he says.

The council has already introduced a rule obliging chambers to pay their pupils a 10,000 annual salary from

next year.

Trainee solicitors already have a recommended minimum salary of 15,600 in central London and 14,000 elsewhere.

Yet a recent survey by accountants BDO Stoy Hayward indicates that the scheme may actually be deterring chambers from taking on pupils.

The survey suggests that up to 139 pupillages could be lost next year because of the initiative.

So much, then, for that side of the profession.

But what about Chancery Lane? What is the Law Society doing to ease the debt burden?

It already makes a number of bursaries available each year.

It also publishes individual assessments of each of the country's 31 LPC providers on its Web site, better to inform graduates applying for LPC courses.

It has also been reviewing the training contract system, although Ms Swan says it is unclear when the review will be completed or what conclusions will be reached.

She says that the key to reducing the debt burden lies with encouraging more students to begin training contracts while studying the LPC part time, allowing them to 'earn and learn'.

In the meantime, the Society has recently appointed Manjot Dhanjal to the newly created post of equality and diversity director.

Ms Dhanjal, a former lay administrator at the Office for Supervision of Solicitors, will next year oversee the Society's introduction of it diversity-access scheme.

This includes a scholarship fund to assist students from deprived or ethnic minority backgrounds to obtain access to training.

A Society spokeswoman explains: 'The scheme will aim to help highly talented individuals who, without the help of the scheme, would face insurmountable obstacles in gaining access to the profession.

As well as the fund, a mentoring scheme and job placement scheme will also be created.'

Michael Cuthbert is a senior tutor in law at University College Northampton.

He is also the project leader for Law Student 2000, a questionnaire-based study following a cohort of 3,000 students through the three years of their law degree at 40 English universities.

Mr Cuthbert says government and training institutions also have a vital role to play in encouraging the disadvantaged to enter the profession.

'Given the fees charged by institutions providing the LPC, maybe there's some scope for them to provide scholarships, to plough something back in,' Mr Cuthbert says.

'The government also needs to implement a more tax-friendly mechanism, like they have in the US, so that people get tax allowances for donating to charities to help fund legal educations.'

Students in the red will be anxiously waiting to see how these various proposals pan out, because while the talking continues, the debt continues to pile up.

Scott Neilson is a freelance journalist