Sophia Dirir, senior lawyer at charity Action for Children, has been elected as chair of the Junior Lawyers Division. Dirir said key areas the division will be campaigning on this year include the scarcity of training contracts and pressures to over-specialise at an early career stage.

Dirir said the current level of Legal Practice Course placements does not reflect the number of training contracts on offer. And she believes that law schools should reduce their ‘extortionate’ fees. ‘If students weren’t at risk of throwing away £10,000-plus without then securing a training contract, they would probably be more inclined to go to law school.’