Trainee solicitors are being ‘exploited’ by firms offering them a Hobson’s choice between a paralegal role or the dole when they qualify, the Gazette has learned.

The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) said firms’ financial problems meant they were attempting to avoid paying newly qualified lawyers’ salaries and to save on practising certificate fees.

JLD committee member Kevin Poulter said some newly qualified lawyers are being told that they will only be taken on as paralegals, while law graduates seeking training contracts are being expected to work without pay.

The JLD warned that the profession ‘runs the risk of becoming elitist’ if the trend continues.

Poulter said: ‘The newly qualified jobs market has been hit over the past 12 months and the general feeling is that any position within the profession is better than nothing. Unfortunately this… gives firms the upper hand [over trainees] and the opportunity to exploit their predicament. The profession runs the risk of once again becoming elitist, where only those with sufficient means are able to progress.

‘It’s one of our key issues, and we need to clarify how and where junior lawyers are being exploited. We recognise the current economic difficulties for the profession, but junior lawyers should not disproportionately suffer as a result.’

Poulter said that junior lawyers are being hit hardest in small and medium-sized firms, although the issue has also surfaced at one large firm. He also expressed concern that some trainees are not being told far enough in advance whether they will be kept on by their firm when their training contract expires.

The JLD will shortly canvass its members on the treatment of trainees through an internet poll and through its local networks.

The number of available law firm traineeships fell by nearly 8% in the year ended 31 July 2009, during which 5,809 new traineeships were registered with the Society, down from 6,303 in the year to 31 July 2008.

A spokesman for the SRA said that taking on newly qualified lawyers as paralegals, or taking on interns for no pay, would not breach SRA rules. The SRA sets a minimum salary level for trainees but will decide in the spring whether or not to continue to do so.

Last year a report by the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, chaired by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn, raised concerns over unpaid internships being a barrier to fair access to the legal profession.