THERE are still significantly more students than training contracts in the Scottish legal market, despite the number of people enrolling on diploma courses dipping by three per cent in the current academic year.
Statistics from the Law Society of Scotland show that 675 students are currently studying for the post-graduate legal diploma, which must be completed before prospective lawyers begin a traineeship either at a law firm or an in-house legal department. In 2015/16 the figure was 691.
While the number of graduates embarking on a training contract rose by two per cent to 549 in 2015/16, the figures mean that if everyone who starts the diploma completes it well over 100 are likely to be left without a traineeship to move on to.
Despite this, Katie Wood, head of admissions at the Law Society, said law graduates should not be dissuaded from moving onto the diploma stage, which typically costs around £7,500 in fees.
“Those considering the next step in their legal career, in particular those thinking of doing the diploma in professional legal practice or currently on the diploma and looking for a traineeship, should be encouraged by the latest figures,” she said. “The number of training contracts continues to rise at a consistent pace year on year and there has been a very slight decrease in the number of diploma students commencing their studies in 2016/17. As such we would not anticipate an unmanageable mismatch between graduates and traineeships.”
The Law Society statistics show that while there was a five per cent increase in the number of traineeships on offer in the Central Belt in 2015/16, in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire there was a drop of 26 per cent.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel