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Another half baked plan.

The biggest impediment in this whole issue is that you are asking people to apply for a new job, and that all of the prolonged interviews, training days and the like take place during working hours. Self-employed barristers can manage their diaries to easy manage the demands, but employed solicitors less so.

They give credit for people who have acted as mediators but again employed solicitors will not have the chance to do it.

If you want to genuinely deal with this then sit down with solicitors on an assessment and ask them the barriers they face. Then consider changing your own processes with steps such as Saturday/Sunday sessions and assessments or a shorter assessment process.

Otherwise all this seems to be a tired old sound bite without actually doing anything to change the status quo. Perhaps that is in fact the aim?