Trainee solicitor vacancies could outnumber LPC graduates in the next few years, the College of Law has predicted.
The sea-change in opportunities for LPC graduates could begin as early as this year, with the gap widening to as much as 14 per cent (amounting to about 550 places) in 2011–12. However, the college admits it could be 2013–14 before training contract vacancies exceed LPC graduate applicants, under a more conservative estimate.
Professor Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, said: “Although our two alternative forecasts show the shortfall of graduates happening at different times, they both predict that it will occur within the next few years. The legal profession seems to have a short memory as we saw this same phenomenon after the recession in the early 1990s when there was a shortage of trainees for several years.”
The college bases its predictions on the Law Society’s LPC enrolment figures, which forecast that the number of students passing the LPC in 2010–11 will be about 4,405 (28% less than the year before) while there will be about 4,591 traineeships.
In 2009-10, 4,874 traineeships were registered but 6,148 students passed the LPC, leading to a shortfall of 1,274 places.
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