Having followed the debate in recent weeks over the proposed introduction of a new training scheme, I heartily agree with the letters of C Travers (see [2005] Gazette, 14 April, 16) and Joyce Glasser (see [2005] Gazette, 28 April, 14).

I speak from experience when I say the current system is inherently unfair to those people who are looking to enter the profession with no contacts or background in the legal establishment - generally ethnic minorities, disabled people and the working class.


I am from a working class background and have a first class honours in law and a distinction on my legal practice course (LPC) and still cannot find a training contract. I am currently a paralegal; it took me six months to get this position after my LPC, and I believe the proposed system will be flexible enough to allow my progression into the legal profession proper without having to rely on the beneficence of senior solicitors.


The current system is truly a restrictive practice, allowing entry only to those with connections or an Oxbridge education. Let us hope that the new cost of the supposed day-one outcomes exam is not so prohibitive that one still has to rely on law firms to be able to afford it.


I think the telling point is that as an added sweetener to get the reforms through, the minimum salary will be dropped. On this point, the idea that this will make little difference to current salaries is frankly laughable, and the support for this by the Trainee Solicitors Group is outrageous. I wonder what studies they have carried out into the average junior paralegal's salary, which is essentially what all trainees will be. I can assure you it will be nowhere near the Law Society minimum. So the idea that the marketplace will react to this new system and increase salaries is a joke, but not a particularly funny one.


Adam Snow, Crewe