Work life balance
Laurence Simons, a well known and respected legal recruitment company, has conducted an interesting survey of in-house lawyers. Some points from the survey of possible interest are :-
- Some 70% feel so overworked that they would forego 1/5th of their salary to have a 4 day week.
- Smart phones and other communications technology blur the boundaries between work and leisure.
- Carriers of smart phones received 13% more e-mails, and spent two-and-a-half times longer checking their emails, including time in the evenings and weekends.
MORE LAWYERS THAN JOBS
Even with the UK having the worst economic conditions for a generation, students still seem to think that a career in the law is a passport to a job and a remunerative career and the number of qualifying lawyers keeps on growing.
The latest Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) figures confirm that in England & Wales there are now 150% more solicitors than a generation ago, in numerical terms this equates to a rise from some 47,000 practising solicitors in 1985 to 118,000 now. Professor Stephen Mayson, a well known and highly respected legal commentator stated , “In terms of the number of qualified lawyers that the market requires, we are probably are overlawyered”. The figures for fully qualified solicitors do not even take into account the many thousands of paralegals now also working in the legal profession, many hoping that one day they will still be offered an opportunity to become fully qualified. There is also the issue that many legal services are now being commoditised and there is a plethora of resources available on the internet, at low cost, such as interactive legal documents, drafted by lawyers, available at very low cost and with no or minimal further legal input required.
We operate in a free market but sooner rather than later students will surely realise that having a law degree is a very useful and respected qualification, but that the cost and other factors of progressing further down a highly uncertain route through Law School and beyond should not be pursued with blinkers or rise tinted spectacles.
The number of paralegals has risen even faster than the number of fully qualified lawyers and that’s saying something. Estimates suggest that there may be as many as 500,000 paralegals now in the UK, with about 50,000 working in law firms or in-house legal departments.
Is there any point in being a paralegal ?
Many paralegals think that taking on this role gains them useful experience ands acts a sa “foot in the door” with the prospect of a training contract for the future.
Whilst some experience gained is useful, paralegals do not tend to get the opportunity to learn proper client managemnt skills, and like all service sectors, these skills are absolutely vital in the legal profession. We have to say also that, whilst far from imposible, most paralegals do not ultimatekly get training contracts, certainly not in the large practices which will have already selected trainees each year from the ultra competitive pool of applicants. Salaries for paralegals tend to be modest.
We have no wish or desire to put off potential law students from following a career in the law, but many students still seem to believe that training contracts are not too hard to come by and/or that law is necessarily a lucrative career. We recently came across a story, which we suspect is far from rare, whereby 2 law school graduates, who had not secured training contracts but who still believed they may ultimately get them, ended up working at a small law practice for 6 months completely free of charge. Ultimately, the law firm simply let them go thereafter and the experience gained was in reality only in dealing with menial tasks.
We are simply suggesting that anyone considering a career in the law, and paying for law school, fully consider all the options and implications and to obtain as much practical experience as possible, whether it be working in a divorce practice or a commercial law firm.
This website is dedicated to everything Law Schools. What they are, how they work and why you need them. We focus on the following three countries; the UK, the USA and Canada.
If you want to be a lawyer in either of these countries then you are going to have to attend a law school at some point in your legal career. It is at law school that you will be taught all the things you need to know about being a lawyer. This includes contract law, tort law, criminal law, administration law, commercial law and company law just to name a few.
Becoming a lawyer is really tough achievement therefore it is vital that you pick the correct law school to help further your career. Going for the best is not always necessary but you do need to make that they school you choose is reputable and can deliver you a great legal education so you can go on to be the best lawyer possible.
