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While one may deprecate the practices described, and lament the good old days, what is described appears to be a function of the market. There were about 17,000 law graduates last year and 5,500 TCs; and 6,000 admissions in 2015. From my own experience (over 12 years as a Training Principal) non-law graduates make up about a half of those applying for and landing TCs. Clearly not all law graduates will seek to become solicitors, but surely more than 3,000?

However the numbers crunch in detail, the picture is one of over supply. This is hardly surprising. TCs are applied for typically (although not always) two years in advance, and few businesses can predict their staffing requirements 4 years in advance.

The problem is compounded for those firms practising 'high street' type work by such things as the erosion of legal aid and the effective curtailing of enforcing lower value legal rights through high court fees and limited costs recovery. It is a shame that many firms (it seems) cannot plan very far ahead, and perhaps factors like misplaced optimism are also in play.

At the moment however it seems that the escalator is producing too many aspirant lawyers at several stages. If numbers reduce, and equilibrium is achieved, it won't be long before there is a shortage of young lawyers, as there was 10 years ago.

One may question whether in a profession like law, requiring a long and expensive training, it is appropriate to let the market decide, and instead have some form of control over entry at an early stage, before debts (and hopes) are raised too high. However that may work, it would be contrary to the current prevailing free market orthodoxy.