Reality bites: facing up to the truth about your career prospects

Law students are faced with two major issues: lack of awareness of their career prospect realities, and the current requirements for qualifying as a barrister or solicitor. Although much information is available, legal training often does not prepare students for the realities of the legal profession, leading to many students basing their career choices on unrealistic hopes. Often students gain access to the relevant information late in their career stage, which leads to many of them changing path. I have come across many law students who, even though late in their degree or at the vocational stage, do not know the full extent of the difficulty in obtaining a training contract or pupillage.

It is for this reason that I feel there is a great need for relevant realistic information at early stages of the legal education, as well as at secondary school level. Such timely information can help students to make informed decisions prior to dedicating themselves to a long, expensive process that requires strong commitment.  It was for this reason that I joined the UK Law Students' Association (UKLSA) - a charitable organisation with goals that include providing vital, up-to-date information on the actual chances of qualifying and succeeding in the profession to prospective and current law students across the United Kingdom.

As chair of the UKLSA executive committee, I had the opportunity to raise these concerns at the "Westminster Legal Policy Forum Keynote Seminar: Legal Education and Training Review", held on 8 October 2013. At this forum I suggested that universities should better inform students of, and prepare students for, the realities of the legal profession. I also emphasised that schools and other bodies should better inform prospective law students of these realities, with a focus on the difficulties when qualifying as a solicitor or a barrister.

Although much information is available, including statistical facts and figures describing the state of the legal profession today, the information on the realities of getting a training contract or a pupillage is very difficult to access. The employment market is distressed in many fields due to the economic climate, but I feel that a legal career is one of the most challenging ones to break into. If one of our aims is that all potential and current law students get a fair opportunity, then information on the realities of the profession should be made more accessible to students by schools and universities. The UKLSA has a schools programme designed to provide secondary school students who are considering the legal profession with unbiased information on their career opportunities and prospects. However, the UKLSA does not yet have the financial capacity to fund a programme which would cover all UK schools. We actively seek support for these activities and invite members of the legal profession to assist us in this important work.

The second major hurdle faced by law students is the requirement that they obtain and complete a training contract or a pupillage following their professional training in order to fully qualify. While it can be argued that this system ensures better quality, it is also possible that it deprives a great deal of capable law graduates of the chance of qualifying. One way of potentially creating fairer opportunities is to introduce a new route of qualification. For example, in the United States law students are fully qualified and allowed to practice law on successfully passing the Bar exam and being called to the Bar. This system seems fairer, allowing the most hardworking students to be entitled to practice and join the market without regard to which school or university they attended.

Overall, while changing the qualifying requirements may be difficult to implement and may take a long time, the first issue can be resolved with a little extra effort from universities and schools. I am passionate about helping fellow law students in any way I can and I consider myself lucky that I came across the UKLSA, which provided me with the opportunity to do so.

Sahar Hariri is chair of the executive committee of the UKLSA.