The job market for training contract vacancies has been affected by the recession and become very tough.  As a consequence a large number of high quality students have been having difficulty getting a job.

This is due to two main reasons.  Firstly, many law firms have reduced the numbers of trainee solicitor vacancies.  Secondly, the numbers of students studying law has been increasing.

This has meant that there are many more people looking for trainee solicitor jobs than there are on offer.  A consequence of this has been even more people competing for training contract vacancies and inevitably more people being unsuccessful and having to look at alternative careers or get interim legal jobs instead.

Unfortunately, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better as each year more students complete the legal practice course than there are trainee solicitor vacancies on offer.  As a consequence, this year will see not only this year’s LPC students making applications for training contracts but also any of last year’s LPC students who were unsuccessful with their applications last year.

To make matters worse, there will also be additional LPC graduates applying for training contract vacancies who graduated even further back than last year.

Whilst things have looked bleak for law students for a while now, there can be hope that things will improve.  There will always be a demand for trainee solicitors and firms will start to increase the numbers of jobs on offer at some stage.  The off law firm has already started to raise its number of vacancies, in fact.

Balancing the numbers of trainee solicitors that are taken on each year with the amount of qualified lawyers a firm might need in the future is also a difficult process to manage.  This balancing act sometimes causes some law firms to defer the training contracts they have already offered for a year of two.

By doing this the firm is able to save itself the money it would have spent on the trainee’s salary for a year.  This also allows the firm to tweak the balance of the numbers of solicitors qualifying at a particular time so as to fit in with when the economic climate is looking better and the amount of work being done has increased.