Recruitment: solicitors with non-law degrees are on the rise, as companies look for breadth of business knowledge

The number of students entering the solicitors’ profession after completing undergraduate law degrees has dropped in the past ten years as firms welcome the extra experience and maturity of other entrants, especially in the commercial arena, it has been claimed.


Delegates at BPP Law School’s graduate recruitment conference heard that 52% of the 7,247 solicitors admitted to the Roll in 2003/04 had law degrees, while 18.5% had taken non-law degrees and 23% had transferred from a different jurisdiction or career, according to Law Society statistics. Ten years ago, 64.3% of those entering the profession had come through the traditional route and studied law.


Law Society President Kevin Martin said: ‘The average age of those qualifying as solicitors who are non-law graduates is more than 30 years old, compared with 28 for law graduates. Firms often welcome the extra experience, particularly in commerce, that some non-law graduates offer.’


He added: ‘They may also have other skills and knowledge, such as languages, that can be useful in business. In our experience, many firms like to recruit a mixture of law and non-law graduates.’


Michael Hunting, head of graduate recruitment at Eversheds, where roughly 40% of applications came from students who did not study law at undergraduate level, said he would like to see more applications from non-law students.


He added: ‘Those with law degrees tend to think of being a lawyer as an academic process without any appreciation of what it is actually like. A career as a commercial lawyer is a career in business – you must have a feel for the business world. It staggers me when I talk to applicants whose knowledge of the business world is almost non-existent.’


Philippa Shorthouse, human resources adviser at the Nottingham office of national firm Browne Jacobson, agreed, saying: ‘We don’t just want people who’ve been on a conveyor belt; we want people who have thought carefully about their reasons for going into the law.’


Some 40% of Browne Jacobson’s current trainees initially studied non-law subjects. Ms Shorthouse added that the experiences gained from studying other subjects such as chemistry, mathematics or a language can be very useful in certain practice areas.


Alex McGovern, graduate recruitment manager at City firm Norton Rose, where again 40% of trainees studied non-law degrees, saw no difference between the abilities of the two groups after they have completed their training.


She said partners could sometimes tell those who had done science or maths degrees because of the way they approached their work.