The Law Society should ditch the training contract system because it is unfair and unnecessary, the head of the College of Law's London branch told delegates.

Richard de Friend said: 'I urge the Law Society to recognise that the single biggest barrier is the requirement that everyone must have gone through a training contract in order to practise.

A lot of people who are coming through are denied the opportunity to carry on because of the training contract selection market.'

He said legal practice course (LPC) graduates should be able to work as lawyers without a training contract.

The college has found that students who have a training contract before completing the LPC are much more likely to pass first time, he said.

But students from ethnic minority backgrounds are only half as likely as the majority of students to have a contract secured by then.

Rachel Rothwell