Qualification: easing barriers could increase ranks of unemployed solicitors, warn lawyers


Fewer barriers to qualification could lead to more unemployed solicitors, with the problem shifted from legal practice course (LPC) graduates without training contracts to practitioners without jobs, City lawyers have claimed.



The warning came in the City of London Law Society (CLLS) response to the proposed introduction of a two-track approach to qualification. The proposal - put out for consultation by the Law Society Regulation Board in August - could see students able to qualify as a solicitor by gathering work experience from different, 'non-accredited' organisations and completing a training portfolio, rather than working at the same firm throughout.



The CLLS acknowledged that such a scheme would help more LPC graduates take the next step in their careers, but questioned whether there are jobs waiting to be filled.



Tony King, global head of HR development at Clifford Chance and chairman of the CLLS' training committee, told the Gazette: 'We're keen that really talented people get into the profession and want the barriers preventing them removed. But where are the empty desks? There'll be more solicitors qualifying, but will there also be more jobs?'



These concerns are echoed in the Bristol Law Society response to the consultation. Its training committee said: 'There is a real risk that poor- quality candidates will now qualify but not find a PQE (post-qualification experience) job, simply moving the bottleneck into the profession.'



The CLLS, whose members employ 60% of the national total of trainees, has no objection in principle to qualification through the non-accredited training organisation route.



Mr King said: 'But we mustn't allow a two-tier situation to develop. The proposal doesn't make it clear how the two routes are to be made indistinguishable and of equal merit in the eyes of the profession.'



Bristol Law Society argued that the perception of two tiers of qualification is inevitable and that firms would be reluctant to employ solicitors who had not come through the full two-year process.



Black and Asian lawyers last week warned that while the two-track scheme could help more students from ethnic minorities to qualify, it could lead to a training 'apartheid' (see (2006) Gazette, 28 September, 4).



Jonathan Rayner