The Law Society has welcomed the publication of reports by the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) on access and diversity in the legal professions.

Research carried out by the legal-services regulator has found that the costs of qualification, as well as the length of time it takes to earn a reasonable salary, are the biggest barriers to entry to the legal professions.

In a series of Breaking Down Barriers reports, the LSRA has also made 32 recommendations for reform that are aimed at improving equity of access and entry into the legal professions and, over time, achieving greater diversity within the professions.

The Law Society said that it was committed to widening access to the profession through targeted investment and further development of its existing initiatives in this area, which include a range of financial supports, new routes to legal qualifications, and school outreach programmes.

New pathways

“Recent Law Society research findings indicate that new pathways to legal education, such as the Law Society’s Professional Practice Course (PPC) Hybrid, are already helping to diversify demographics in the profession, but more needs to be done,” it stated.

The organisation added that it looked forward to working with the LSRA to implement the recommendations, and to further broadening access to the legal profession.

The recommendations cover areas such as:

• Opening pathways to qualification,
• Costs of joining legal professions,
• Workplace culture, and
• Diversity and inclusion.

The regulator’s recommendations follow an analysis of its first comprehensive survey of student, trainee and early-career barristers and solicitors, recently qualified but non-practising solicitors and barristers, and law undergraduates at 15 higher education institutes.

‘Significant costs’

On the key barriers of cost and time, the LSRA says that both branches of the profession face challenges in opening access to individuals from more diverse backgrounds because of the “significant costs” of professional training and the mechanisms for obtaining and undertaking practical training.

“For candidates with different needs and responsibilities, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds, the direct and indirect costs involved may act as a deterrent to entry to the professions, sending them instead into other career pathways,” it states.

The cost and time needed to complete the FE-1 was the biggest barrier to entry for solicitors (62%), with 56% citing the overall cost of qualifying, and 53% the difficulty in securing a training contract.

Information on training

The regulator finds that there is a lack of easily available, full, and clear information for prospective solicitors and barristers about training and pupillage opportunities and selection processes, as well as the various career pathways that may be available.

It describes the system for qualifying barristers to identify and secure a master for their mandatory pupillage year at the Law Library as “opaque and ad hoc, with scant information available online”.

Recruitment drives

For solicitors, the LSRA says that there is “considerably more” information available on securing training contracts, “although this is not all in one place and the pathways to traineeships with large law firms are most visible due to their significant recruitment drives targeting certain undergraduates”.

The survey found that 85% of solicitors thought that the current process of securing a training contract could be improved. One-third believed that securing such a contract was based on who you knew.

Impact on personal life

According to the survey, 77% of trainee and practising solicitors cited both working hours and impact on personal life as key challenges, followed by lack of workplace flexibility (52%).

Despite these challenges, almost 60% of junior solicitors agreed that the benefits of qualifying outweighed the challenges.

The survey finds that early-career self-employed barristers face “considerable challenges” in earning a living, with more than three-quarters citing the time it takes to build up a practice as a key issue, followed by difficulties getting paid (67%) and levels of pay (62%).

The LSRA research also finds that only 14% of solicitors, 23% of barristers, and 28% of law undergraduates agree that the professions are currently representative of the population.

Initiatives

One-quarter of solicitors told the survey that they had experienced discrimination, while 80% of those who had taken maternity leave said that it had had a negative impact on their career.

Dr Brian Doherty (LSRA chief executive) acknowledged that the Law Society and barrister organisations had introduced a range of initiatives that might help to alleviate some of the barriers to entry and early-career challenges.

“We look forward to working with all stakeholders in delivering on an implementation plan to tackle the economic and other barriers that continue to be faced by aspiring and early-career legal professionals, with the common goal of building a more inclusive and diverse legal-services sector,” he concluded.