Edward Foster suggests it is unfair that so few LPC students secure a training contract and that a three-year postgraduate professional apprenticeship may be the way forward. The abolition of the minimum trainee ‘wage’ agreed last week should also help.

LPC students are able to find out in a few minutes of research online their chances of securing a training contract. If you have CCC grades at A-level and a 2:2 from an ex-poly, you know perfectly well people will not be falling over themselves to have you. Students go into this with their eyes open and take the risks. Edward Foster made 32 handwritten applications for a training contract. In the 80s I made 110 typed applications for a training contract before securing one, despite having a pretty good CV. It was tough.

Recently I was reading my grandfather’s letters from the 1920s to his brothers. He left school at 12 because of illness. Four of his older brothers tried to become solicitors and after leaving school became articled clerks. Only one succeeded in qualifying. One was convicted of theft of a bicycle when drunk and the two others turned to drink too. My grandfather paid the passage of the failed three to Canada in the 20s where they certainly did not thrive after the market crash and great depression. Indeed, they often slept rough and had very little food.

I am not sure that times are harder now. As then, persistence pays off and the removal of the minimum salary should help increase the number of training contracts.

Susan Singleton, Singletons, Pinner