Law Society-interested in training solicitors or just greedy for money

jdscrubs

I was wondering about the Law Society. I would love to have written a letter to the newspapers about this but have been told that it is better to wait until I qualify to do so. However since I found this site and which provides more annoynimity then the paper does, then here I go.

The Law Sociey, to those who dont know, "trains" people to become solicitors. I put "trains" like this cos I dont think this is actually their primary objective. I think their primary objective is to make money and lots of it.

Over the last few years, the amount qualifing have reached record numbers. This was fine when there was enough work to go around. However this is no longer the case anymore what with the recession. You would think that the Law Society would cap the amount of people coming in so as to clear out the system. This is not happening. They keep letting more & more in. Yet the ones who are qualifying are finding there is no work for them. Are the Law Society doing anything to help these newly qualified solicitors. Of course not cos there is no money in it for them.

Before one gets to Blackhall, one has to pass 8 exams, which when I did were around €80 each. I hear they are now €100 each. Most people do not pass all 8 on their first or second go so like me, takes 4 attempts to get all 8. Then when one passes them, one has to look for an apprenticeship so one can get into Blackhall. No help by the Law Society here as again there is no money involved in it. When one does get an apprenticeship, one then has to pay around €6500 for 6 months of college. You would expect 6 months of lectures and tutorials that are well thought and prepared. Not so especailly in conveyancing where most of the lecturers and tutors were terrible. Then when one goes back to the 2nd stint in college for 2&bit months, which keeps reducing, one has to pay around €3,500, which keeps rising. Eventually when one qualifies more money is spent getting ones name onto the roll of solicitors and getting one's parchment. Unless you are getting everything paid for by your firm, which I know a lot arent, when one qualifies, they would have spent on average around more then €20,000 to become a solicitor only now to find themselves on the dole queue.

You would think that after having spent(money wise) and given so much money to the Law Society, that you would get some help from them, when times are bad, like they are now, for those qualifying. This is not the case. All the Law Society are interested in are making money and lots of it. There are still taking people for college this September and another 500 started in Dublin last September.

Anyway that is my rant. Dont know whether people agree with me or not but I just needed to get that out of my system.

johnnyskeleton

You're not alone in thinking that, but there are a number of other open threads and you should have posted there. The way things are going, soon the only threads in Legal Discussion will be of the annoyed trainee solicitor type.

As for the first part, I don't see a problem with the Law Society charging a reasonable fee for providing its educational service. Is the Law Society a non-profit organisation? I believe so, and the situation is that they get money from students & practitioners and this money is used to fund the educational programme, pay the full time staff of the LS (including president) and other miscellaneous costs (e.g. Gazette). So before accusing them of being greedy, ask youself to what end? Where does the money go? It would be understandable if the profits were taken by shareholders, but in the absence of such, who benefits from what you describe?

It seems to me that the LS trains however many people a) are smart enough to pass their FE1s, 2) are capable enough of obtaining a training contract and 3) paying the cost of the course (unless paid by employer). If this results in more solicitors being trained than the market can currently bear, that is not the LS' fault. I would also add that they probably did not forsee the housing bubble bursting and so were training solicitors on the presumption that there would be continuous expainsion.

As regards the second point about how the LS doesn't do much to support young NQ sols who are out of work, I'd agree with you, that's bad form. I'm not sure that there is much they can do if there are fewer jobs out there, but they could certainly try to help.

nuac

due to a number of High COurt decisions the Law Society afaik cannot cap the numbers qualifying as solicitors. They have to respond to demand and charge fees to cover their costs.

The various colleges offering law courses, and especially some advertising the notion that qualification in law was a path to riches and prestige should have warned those they were signing up of the realities. A chat with any practitioner in either branch would have been worthwhile. Academics do not know what is happening.

These colleges should also have warned those wishing to qualify as solicitors that they would need training contracts. They should have warned intendng barristers that that branch of the profession is overcrowded and hugely competitive. All those institutions were seeking numbers without regard for prospects the other side of the sausage machine.

Law is a very tough profession. Those still with other options should consider them now.

TheDemiurge

Funny that you should post this, OP. Over the last few months the reality of the role of the LS has started to dawn on me, although I'm a slow learner.

Nuac is right that the LS can't necessarily restrict the numbers, et al, but the impression given in the press that the LS and its solicitor membership are a cosy cartel out to screw cash out of the poor little man on the street is just balderdash. Once you qualify, you find the LS is just as distant as it was during the apprenticeship stage. That's putting it mildly by the way as I don't want to get boards.ie into trouble.

Suffice to say that the LS is gradually making itself irrelevant, and will at some stage dissolve. It did nothing to make a stand for solicitors with the massive insurance hikes over the past few weeks, and presided over a statutory instrument regarding the operation of practices which IMHO should be subject to judicial review.

It's horrible to wake up one day and realise that you weren't actually part of a profession at all; just an empty shell with nobody home.

dazza21ie

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

As for the first part, I don't see a problem with the Law Society charging a reasonable fee for providing its educational service.

I think that is the question. Does the LS charge a "reasonable fee" and do students get value for money.
Despite the dramatic increase in the numbers over the last few years the fees have not gone down but in fact increased substantially.
I know the Law Society angered alot of people last year by running the Second Irish Exam last January in the knowledge that the same exam would be abolished weeks later and therefore anyone taking it would be wasting their money.

jdscrubs

dazza21ie wrote: »

I think that is the question. Does the LS charge a "reasonable fee" and do students get value for money.
Despite the dramatic increase in the numbers over the last few years the fees have not gone down but in fact increased substantially.
I know the Law Society angered alot of people last year by running the Second Irish Exam last January in the knowledge that the same exam would be abolished weeks later and therefore anyone taking it would be wasting their money.

Dazza21, you are absolutely right to ask that question. Got post today from the Law Society about going back to do my last stint of college with them. It used to be 3 months & around €3500 but last year they announced that the amount of time was going to be reduced to 2 months&1 week this year&only 6 weeks from next year. You would think that the fees would reduce as a result. Not so. The fees will be €4800, €200 up from last year. So that is more money for less time. If it will be anyway like it was for the 6 months I did last year, it will not be worth it. Those 6 months consisted of badly taught lectures and tutors, which were taught be clueless people, especially in conveyancing. It was so bad that 3/4's of the class failed so had to repeat&every repeat cost €100 each. Anytime a lecture was cancelled, we didnt know about it until we got to the lecture hall even though they had all our mobile numbers which they could have sent a text on. The materials they gave us were all over the place and werent great.

Johnny Utah

Greedy for money, no doubt about it!

dats_right

jdscrubs wrote: »

. All the Law Society are interested in are making money and lots of it.

The Law Society made a profit of €2,091,732 from 'Education Activities' in the last reported year up from €1,136,228 the previous year. That's almost a 100% increase in profit in one year!! Also income generated from the PPCI&II courses was over €8m and over 500k for 'Indentures & Registration'- It must be very expensive to get the Registrar to sign the Indentures and input the details into the system! At a time when the profession is struggling generally, you would think that they would be reducing education prices not increasing them by in some cases over 6%.

TheDemiurge

dats_right wrote: »

The Law Society made a profit of €2,091,732 from 'Education Activities' in the last reported year up from €1,136,228 the previous year. That's almost a 100% increase in profit in one year!! Also income generated from the PPCI&II courses was over €8m and over 500k for 'Indentures & Registration'- It must be very expensive to get the Registrar to sign the Indentures and input the details into the system! At a time when the profession is struggling generally, you would think that they would be reducing education prices not increasing them by in some cases over 6%.

Hundreds of solicitors not renewing their practising certificates, and the numbers on PPC 1 markedly reduced; I can see what could happen next. PPCs1 and 2 made open to anyone who has passed the FE1s, and then they can fight it out for an apprenticeship afterwards - just like the UK system. In Britain there were 9,000 students last year who did the equivalent of PPC, 5,000 of whom actually got apprenticeships.

I can't envisage the LS letting a little issue called recession tarnish its lifestyle.

jdscrubs wrote: »

It used to be 3 months & around €3500 but last year they announced that the amount of time was going to be reduced to 2 months&1 week this year&only 6 weeks from next year.

That is absolutely scandalous; is it any wonder that the claims experience of solicitors is shooting up if training is at best negligible and at worst zero.

dazza21ie

TheDemiurge wrote: »

That is absolutely scandalous; is it any wonder that the claims experience of solicitors is shooting up if training is at best negligible and at worst zero.

Maybe that's the Law Society's big plan. Lower the standards of those qualifying resulting in lots of claims of professional negligence and more work for more solicitors!

Angelica

If anyone on the PPC1 2007 can recall, there was a lot of contraversy about the Law Society trying to reduce the duration of the PPC2 to 8 weeks but in the end I think (not 100% certain) there was an agreement after a lot of debate with students and education reps etc. that it would be kept to 12 weeks minimum but of course, the Law Society want to keep it as short as possible but getting an exorbitant fee for what will probably be a fairly useless experience. I agree with the other posters that the Law Society are down on revenue because of so many solicitors being out of work and not renewing their practice cert. so of course they decide to hit the trainees as they know we have no option but to pay whatever excessive fees they ask. Its typical of them.