Trainee solicitor minimum salary under threat - JLD response
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published proposals to abolish the mandatory minimum salary for trainee solicitors.
Full details of the consultation, which runs to 10 April 2012, are available on the SRA website.
In response the JLD says:
The current market for trainee solicitors is saturated. There are more individuals trying to enter the legal profession than there are training contracts available. Against the backdrop of intense competition for training contracts and a situation where students are more often than not funding their own legal training, the trainee minimum wage provides trainees with financial security, safeguards against exploitation (whether the direct exploitation of individual trainees due to an over supply of LPC graduates or firms exploiting the lack of regulation to drive down trainee salaries) and ensures that talented individuals from a wide background and experience are not deterred from entering the profession by an inability to meet their debts and/or greater salaries and professional standards in other professions.
The JLD is concerned that if the minimum wage were to be removed for trainees, there would more examples of exploitation occurring amongst trainees, as the JLD is already finding with many work experience and paralegals. Individuals could find themselves encouraged or simply due to desperation forced to work for very low salaries or next to nothing (if not free). There is a danger that the future generations of the legal profession could be mainly populated by individuals from wealthy backgrounds who are able to accept low-salaried training contracts as they are in a position to receive additional financial support from their family to supplement their low wage.
It is clear that the impact will have a devastating effect on the current lack of diversity in the legal sector. How is this going to help encourage those from disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue a legal career if they have more debt from university, debt from legal education and now could face an even harder struggle to have any prospect of paying off that debt, and in fact incurring more? This is in a situation where many trainees and qualified solicitors already struggle with the high levels of debt. We ask, in whose interest is it to scrap the minimum salary?
That said, the JLD is committed to inviting debate and participating in consultations on the protection afforded by the minimum wage. However it has yet to be convinced by arguments suggesting that the minimum wage should be removed. The removal of the minimum wage would not only serve to restrict entry to those who could not afford the low wage, but it would open up trainee solicitors to further exploitation and the loss of talented individuals to other professions. It could also deter talented individuals from pursuing a career in legal aid and traditionally less well paid areas of practice.
The JLD would also invite the SRA to extend its consultation to include individuals working as paralegals and those completing work experience programmes. Training contracts are often secured by undertaking work experience and/or work as a paralegal in a law firm. Therefore trainees should not be considered separately, but rather as part of the entire training process.