# Solicitors.........enough work out there??



## l.m (27 Mar 2009)

Hi there, basically my question is aimed at people working in the legal industry.........particulary solicitors.  Is there enough work out there to go around? I am currently looking to qualify as a solicitor but, am i wasting my time? Do you think i will just join a queue of other solicitors seeking work. Would people advise me to reconsider my career options??
Another thing i'd like people's opinion on is whether you consider the career of a solicitor a very closed shop career? I have been faced with alot of rejection over the years based on my lack of contacts and lack of legal connections in my family? is this the case for other people?


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## MOB (27 Mar 2009)

1.  There is not enough work to go around.

2.  It is not a closed shop career.  Certainly there can be an appearance if it - but it is an appearance only.   Anyone who is able to qualify as a solicitor can immediately go into practice.


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## moneygrower (27 Mar 2009)

second MOB. Don't go into conveyancing! And I know people with no legal friends who work as solicitors.


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## juke (27 Mar 2009)

Third MOB. It's very hard these days, with not enough work and huge competition.


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## ramble (31 Mar 2009)

I agree.  A lot of existing solicitors are going to have to shut up shop.  In order to generate enough work to earn an average enough living you have to put in a lot of time getting the work,  you have to know and be liked by a lot of people, really have to work your contacts, have to do a lot of voluntary work and show your face in a lot of places.

 AND  you have to know your law, the right barristers, which other solicitors to trust all whilst minding lots of other peoples money and devising and operating quality systems to ensure you don't get sued.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my work but you really have to love it.  I have a friend the same age who did primary teaching straight from school, not knocking teachers, its a tough job, but on an hourly rate basis she earns double what I do, and has a pension.

Plus you have to put up with everybody thinking you are loaded, which really annoys me, but of course you just have to smile and put up with it.


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## Cayne (31 Mar 2009)

ramble said:


> Plus you have to put up with everybody thinking you are loaded, which really annoys me, but of course you just have to smile and put up with it.


 
But I thought solicitors like giving the impression of being loaded?? Go on humour us whats your biggest expense in last 2 years??


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## McCrack (31 Mar 2009)

Behike cigars are mine, not to mention the RR Vogue I drive.


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## ramble (31 Mar 2009)

A very shiny, sexy, sparkly 8000 euro insurance policy aka contibution to Michael Lynn client relief fund.

Might think about the cigars , may be a bit kinky for a woman tho.


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## mf1 (31 Mar 2009)

"Go on humour us whats your biggest expense in last 2 years?? "

Fluorescent bicycle clips! 

mf


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## Cayne (1 Apr 2009)

Got to hand it to the legal guys ye have a sense of humour!


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## l.m (1 Apr 2009)

Hey guys any of you want a nice inexpensive expense............an apprentice? hehe she will be loyal and give you hours and hours of hard work   Way more efficient than a RR Vogue and way better for your health than a cigar hehe


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## Complainer (1 Apr 2009)

ramble said:


> I have a friend the same age who did primary teaching straight from school, not knocking teachers, its a tough job, but on an hourly rate basis she earns double what I do, and has a pension.


Are you perhaps mixing up classroom hours with working hours?


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## Askar (1 Apr 2009)

Revenue figures disclosed in Competition Authority report put median income of Solicitors at €150k pa (2004). I assume this is gross and does include pension contribution. The primary school teacher income is up to €62k, but that is for 176 days a year (not full days), and includes a defined benefit pension. Salaries for secondary and tertiary teachers are higher than this. If you add the pension benefit, say 25%, then teachers income could be valued at circa €78k, which is still considerably below disclosed median income of solicitors, although the hours worked are substantially less. However, given the number of solicitors who continue to qualify it looks like Solicitors could find themselves as the new taxi men - too many chasing too little general practice work. Maybe the public will be sympathetic or maybe Solicitors will become a new radical group and look for a capping of their numbers on the basis that economic studies suggest that too many solicitors are not in the public interest, as it creates greater litigation???


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## MOB (2 Apr 2009)

Askar said:


> Revenue figures disclosed in Competition Authority report put median income of Solicitors at €150k pa (2004). I assume this is gross and does include pension contribution. .................................If you add the pension benefit, say 25%, then teachers income could be valued at circa €78k, which is still considerably below disclosed median income of solicitors, although the hours worked are substantially less.



Sorry to quibble, but you are comparing apples with oranges.  Misuse of statistics is one of my pet peeves.   The Competition Authority report did not put median income of solicitors at €150k per annum.   It cited a median income for Solicitor business owners of €140k, a median of €52k for "Associate" solicitors and a median of €48k for "employed solicitors".

The comparison is by any not by any means perfect because most teachers are employees while a relatively high proportion of solicitors own and operate their own business.  So I do concede that comparing employee solicitors to employee teachers would not be a perfectly valid comparison either.   The truth, I rather suspect, is that a single headline income figure is simply not a useful way to compare the two careers.

Mind you, there are undoubtedly some private education facilities out there owned and operated by qualified teachers.  I very much doubt that these owner managers have (or had at the relevant time) a median income of €78k.


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## Askar (2 Apr 2009)

MOB said:


> Sorry to quibble, but you are comparing apples with oranges. Misuse of statistics is one of my pet peeves. The Competition Authority report did not put median income of solicitors at €150k per annum. It cited a median income for Solicitor business owners of €140k, a median of €52k for "Associate" solicitors and a median of €48k for "employed solicitors".
> 
> The comparison is by any not by any means perfect because most teachers are employees while a relatively high proportion of solicitors own and operate their own business. So I do concede that comparing employee solicitors to employee teachers would not be a perfectly valid comparison either. The truth, I rather suspect, is that a single headline income figure is simply not a useful way to compare the two careers.
> 
> Mind you, there are undoubtedly some private education facilities out there owned and operated by qualified teachers. I very much doubt that these owner managers have (or had at the relevant time) a median income of €78k.


 
No problem with quibbling. It is a long time since I read the report, so I will assume you are right. However, my response was to previous poster comparing primary school teaching. Of course, I should add that the €62k is the top end of a large scale and median income for teachers may be (significantly) lower than that depending on age profile for such teachers (which I suspect would be young on basis of population demographics). Solicitor business owners (sole practitioners and small practices partnerships) comprise the majority of the profession.


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## Kate10 (2 Apr 2009)

Well, I'm a sole practitioner and I don't earn anything like €150k per annum.  Less than half that in fact.  I have two friends who are partners in 3 solicitor practices who are currently taking home less than €40k a year (they earned between 10k and 20k more per year when times were good).  We are all over eight years qualified.  So that's four years in college, at least a two year apprenticeship (three for most of us due to delays in the system at the time) and eight years PQE.  I would love to know where the Competition Authority got its figures.  Maybe they didn't leave Dublin??


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## nuac (2 Apr 2009)

The Competition Authority figures may have applied to partners in the "Big Five".     The firgures for private practice in provincial Ireland are closer to what Kate10 haas outlined.

It is a  tough professon, and getting tougher.


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## Madangan (2 Apr 2009)

Another solicitor here! There have always been some solicitors making verylarge sums, unfortunately I wasnt one of those and doubly unfortunately the vast majority of people believed that all us solicitors were coining it for "shuffling papers around a desk".

The reality of it for me was that I worked very hard  and put in long hours and was well paid but not exorbitantly so. Now after the conveyancing sector has dried up, personal injuries has dried up work is scarce,salaries have been slashed and there are no job opportunities.

I would not recommend the profession to anyone unless they felt almost a vocation for the law.

However to answer the other question of the OP it is not a closed shop..I had no connections with the law whatsoever and many of my friends were the same..those who did well did so on merit in my experience.


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## Towger (2 Apr 2009)

Some thing does not sound right. If you charge €250 per hour and make say 45k to 75k per year after paying rent, rates, lighting, heating, insurance, comms, office equipment etc. Where does the rest of the money go or do you spend most of your time on here  Is that 75K net of taxes? Thinking about it more, how does my solicitor, a one woman show and single mother, afford a fancy house and new merc every couple of years!


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## mf1 (2 Apr 2009)

Towger

You assume that every chargeable hour is filled and paid for - which is not the case. Particularly not now. One of my colleagues tells me that she is busy alright - but its dealing with clients who have fallen on hard times and are unlikely to pay her. She is working for them in the hope that things will turn around and they will stay with her - if she survives. 

Your own solicitor may be operating on serious credit, or have family money, or have income from other sources..........or may be running a very tight, profitable operation.  

The decline in business and income, as far as I can see, is across the board - from top to bottom. 

mf


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## MOB (2 Apr 2009)

To what has already been posted I would add this: the overheads for a small law practice are relatively fixed.  Insurance, Subscriptions, Rent, Heat and Light and Support Staff ( say two secretaries and a perhaps part time bookkeeper) will run to €80-100k in even a modest office.    The solicitor who bills €150k per annum in this environment has a fairly modest income.  The solicitor who increases his\her bills by 33% ( i.e to €200k) will practically double his\her income (as the overhead will not move much).  So there is a big incentive to work long hours and perhaps to under-hire solicitor employees.    This is just the nature of the thing (and I am not complaining about it) - but it is one of the reasons why so many solicitors work long hours and are generally stressed. But it is also the reason why even a small-ish downturn has a disproportionately large effect on the solicitor's income.  Leverage has a way of biting you in a downturn and that includes staff leverage.

I second MF1's comment about billable time not being anything like the same as time spent at work - and you don't need a recession for this to be the case.  About eight years ago ( in a small rural practice) I kept very diligent timesheets for a full year - even though most work was not billed by the hour.  In a small mostly conveyancing practice ( I did not do any litigation at the time) the billable hours in a very busy year came to about 1,500 and the actual fees were circa 225,000 ( I can't actually remember if this was before or after Euro - I think it was Euro).


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## Kate10 (2 Apr 2009)

There are very few solicitors who can charge 8/9 hours per day to a client and have it paid.  Only solicitors working in large practices in specialised areas with plenty of admin support can do that.  And no sole practitioners I'd imagine.  I can only charge an hourly rate when I am doing high value work for a client - commercial or company work, or the odd unusual case.  Most of my work is fixed fee work like conveyancing, which has a terrible return.  I also spend a lot of time dealing with administrative stuff that I need to do to keep the practice going.


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## ramble (2 Apr 2009)

This thread has made me feel a bit better about my income, I was beginning to think I was the only underpaid, under-appreciated solicitor.  I was chatting to a barrister today who thought that the profession would become uninsurable if the current level of indemnity claims keeps going.  That's one factor missing in the discussion,  Solicitors are personally liable for errors and through the compensation fund are also liable for the errors (and greed) of others.  I'm not saying it is a bad thing to be responsible for the work that you do but it does add a large layer of stress to the job.  I think that in the next 5-10 years the one person firm will have disappeared, the insurers will refuse cover.  The work will become more specialised and pro bono will disappear.


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## Complainer (2 Apr 2009)

MOB said:


> Support Staff ( say two secretaries and a perhaps part time bookkeeper) will run to €80-100k in even a modest office.    The solicitor who bills €150k per annum in this environment has a fairly modest income.  The solicitor who increases his\her bills by 33% ( i.e to €200k) will practically double his\her income (as the overhead will not move much).


Wouldn't the admin staff costs (secretaries and bookkeeper) be variable in nature, and need to increase with the volume of work?


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## ramble (2 Apr 2009)

Not really unless you are in the business of messing people around, in Dec and jan  and aug there is generally not a lot of work and a bit of thumb twiddling but you cant send the secretary home and tell him or her they are not getting paid.  When the courts are in session there may be a lot more work and you really need the secretary and his or her good will,  its generally one solicitor one secretary , if the solicitor works 60 -70 hoursa week or does a lot of litigation maybe 2 secretaries per solicitor. Most small firms have a part time bookkeeper usually shared with other offices.  Only a massive increase in work,
Would justify an increase in admin staff.


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## whitegrass (3 Apr 2009)

Another Solicitor here.

In my experience there is reasonable money to be earned in practice.  However in my view Solicitors often prove to be poor business people.  They take on poor paying and non-paying work (myself included), often times do not "shop around" for best value suppliers and often times do not keep a close monitor on the cost of generating revenue.


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## circle (3 Apr 2009)

Askar said:


> I should add that the €62k is the top end of a large scale and median income for teachers may be (significantly) lower than thatquote]
> 
> The top end would include 63,361 (25th point on basic scale) + educational allowance (5,561 for hons primary degree + allowance for HDip etc. if applicable 1,301) + any other allowances for extra duties taken on and promoted posts, teaching through Irish etc.
> 
> ...


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## Complainer (4 Apr 2009)

circle said:


> A fair comparison might be of an unpromoted solicitor against an unpromoted teacher with the same experience.


Speaking of fair comparisons, if you are only going to consider the classroom hours of the teacher, then you should only consider the client-facing hours for the solicitor - no preparation time to be considered - right?


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## MOB (4 Apr 2009)

Complainer said:


> Speaking of fair comparisons, if you are only going to consider the classroom hours of the teacher, then you should only consider the client-facing hours for the solicitor - no preparation time to be considered - right?



No - I would say that if you are making such a comparison, you would compare the hours of parent-teacher meetings to the client-facing hours.   But actually, it is just a case of trying to compare apples and oranges.


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## Kate10 (6 Apr 2009)

I really don't know where the profession is going.  Students and trainees seem to have a totally unrealistic view of the work involved, and the money to be made.  Some newly qualified solicitors seem to me to have had almost no exposure to files and clients during their traineeships.  I really can't understand why someone takes on an apprentice if they are not willing to train them, but that's another gripe.

We have too many solicitors qualifying, and I think standards are slipping.  The level of responsibility is enormous, and the money to be made is definitely not.  

Conveyancing is inevitably going to be simplified, and not before time IMO.  But when it is the fee pool for solicitors will shrink again.  I think ultimately we will have fewer solicitors, and more law clerks or equivalent, but in the meantime we have difficult times ahead.

Is the solution larger firms?  If so, does anyone outside Dublin see signs of practices merging?  It's not happening where I am.


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## l.m (6 Apr 2009)

Kate10  out of curiousty have you seen many of your fellow solicitors taking on trainees or have you yourself taking on any trainnees lately? I'm asking this cause i have myself been looking for an apprenticeship but, i cant myself find anyone taking on anyone, is this the case or are these ppl just fobbing me off.


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## Askar (6 Apr 2009)

l.m said:


> Kate10 out of curiousty have you seen many of your fellow solicitors taking on trainees or have you yourself taking on any trainnees lately? I'm asking this cause i have myself been looking for an apprenticeship but, i cant myself find anyone taking on anyone, is this the case or are these ppl just fobbing me off.


 
In light of all the comments made by Solicitors who have posted, why are you still looking?


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## l.m (6 Apr 2009)

Because i wanna be a solicitor........its all i've ever wanted. I dont care if i only earn minimum wage if im doing a job i like.  I've taken so much rejection already and all its done is made me want it more and i'll make it some day it may take me a while but i will succeed.  Fact of matter is i dont wanna be anything else .


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## Kate10 (6 Apr 2009)

Hi l.m

I have a trainee at the moment because I have taken on a relative.  If this person was not related to me I would not have taken him on and if I stay in practice as a sole practitioner I will not be taking on a trainee again.

Most of my friends are in practice in small practices and they do not have trainees.  I have a couple of friends who are partners or senior associates in large practices and they have a few trainees per section.

I had no relatives in law myself starting out and I trained in a large firm.

Personally, I think there is a place for trainees in large firms where there is work that they can do.  In smaller firms with a lot of litigation they can also be helpful.  But generally, I would not be keen to take on a trainee.  Maybe when I have been in practice 20 years I will change my mind.  If I had more time and money I would enjoy it.  Right now though, to be honest ..it's a bit of a headache.  I'm very sorry to be negative.  I know how tough it is to be in your position.


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## Askar (6 Apr 2009)

l.m said:


> Because i wanna be a solicitor........its all i've ever wanted. I dont care if i only earn minimum wage if im doing a job i like. I've taken so much rejection already and all its done is made me want it more and i'll make it some day it may take me a while but i will succeed. Fact of matter is i dont wanna be anything else .


 
Why? What sort of legal work do you want to do that so makes you want to be a Solicitor?


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## l.m (6 Apr 2009)

I love to go into family law and employment law they were areas i had experience in before. I think employment law will become huge in Ireland in the near future.  I also like the district court such as drink driving cases etc. I know there is absolutely no money to be made but, i find it interesting.


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## l.m (6 Apr 2009)

Thanks kate10 for replying.  Ya im not particulary interested in joining a large firm as its not the work i wanna do, although i did apply to a few of the major firms this year.  I got completely messed around by one of them and has totally put me off the large firms.  What i am finding is that the solicitors in the smaller firms who do take on apprentices are taking on family members..........something which has been happening for years.  I understand why this is happening but, at times its dishearting to think some people are gettin places simply because of who they are related to and not based on merit.  I'm hoping someone will see my potential soon though.........all i can do is hope


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## MoonTheLoon (8 Apr 2009)

ramble said:


> This thread has made me feel a bit better about my income, I was beginning to think I was the only underpaid, under-appreciated solicitor. I was chatting to a barrister today who thought that the profession would become uninsurable if the current level of indemnity claims keeps going. That's one factor missing in the discussion, Solicitors are personally liable for errors and through the compensation fund are also liable for the errors (and greed) of others. I'm not saying it is a bad thing to be responsible for the work that you do but it does add a large layer of stress to the job. I think that in the next 5-10 years the one person firm will have disappeared, the insurers will refuse cover. The work will become more specialised and pro bono will disappear.


 
Ditto.  Apparently insurance premiums in the region of 6k-8k this year, will be 12k come renewal time in November.  

The layoffs in the profession don't help either; many firms will find files just dumped in corners and unworked on for long periods of time.  Which in turn will lead to more claims next year.  

The standard of perfection required is too high for the income that can be earned.  The kernel of the problem is the p**s poor billing model for what is highly specialised work.  Great website:  www.endofesq.com


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## MOB (8 Apr 2009)

MoonTheLoon said:


> Ditto.  Apparently insurance premiums in the region of 6k-8k this year, will be 12k come renewal time in November.
> 
> The layoffs in the profession don't help either; many firms will find files just dumped in corners and unworked on for long periods of time.  Which in turn will lead to more claims next year.
> 
> The standard of perfection required is too high for the income that can be earned.  The kernel of the problem is the p**s poor billing model for what is highly specialised work.  Great website:  www.endofesq.com



Please don't be so despondent.   Keep doing your best to do good work at a fair fee.  Things will turn.   

Instead of seeing the insurance premium increase as a problem, look at it as a blessing.   Pricing power is greater for a supplier in a business with high entry costs.  

As regards the standard of perfection being too high - no it isn't.   There is a regrettable but immutable trend toward defensive practice.   Time has to be spent putting things in writing just to protect yourself, and without any real additional benefit to the client.  Accept the reality and move on.

But mostly, cheer up.  The profession has been through hard times before.   If you like the actual work, stick with it.  Things will turn.


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## Askar (8 Apr 2009)

I would have thought that a major problem in the profession is the lack of significant amount of specialisation (unlike the US). Perhaps the market is too small to carry specialists?  

As a consequence most solicitors are general practitioners - unfortunately many areas of law have become more complex in the last number of years and that is a significant risk exposure for a general practitioner trying to move out of commoditised low margin work such as residential conveyancing. 

Coupled with that is that there is greater supply of general practitioners chasing a decreasing volume of work. I really don't see rising premiums clearing out this already oversupplied market because many overhead costs can be cut with technology and cost sharing. It may, as previous poster pointed out, inhibit new entry - but I suspect that it won't - given that there are probably many more like OP, who will continue at almost any price. Cost savings on overheads etc. could outweigh (or at least significantly offset) increases in insurance premiums.


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## MOB (8 Apr 2009)

"I really don't see rising premiums clearing out this already oversupplied market because many overhead costs can be cut with technology and cost sharing."

True but only up to a point.  

Increased business failure means increased regulatory and compensation costs and you can't share these.  

Increased litigation ( plus adverse investment performance) mean increased insurance premia, and you can't share these either.  

These two figures could well move from circa €7k per annum to circa €20k per annum per solicitor.   

The lowest prices in the profession - certainly in the commoditised conveyancing stuff -  tend to be offered by those who are already operating on a 'cut overhead to the bone' model.  They have very little left that they can trim.

With these figures, there is a serious enough barrier to the solicitor who has perhaps recently been laid off and who would otherwise consider practicing in a small way from the living room\home office or indeed from a shared office.   If you are billing €300k, these increases are annoying but manageable.  If you are doing 6 conveyances a month at €900 each ( which I am sure some solicitors at this end of the market would be charging), this sort of increase is the difference between staying in practice or getting out of law and doing something else.

So, the increased costs will not be enough of themselves to drive solicitors out of business - but they will certainly discourage further entrants.


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## get real (8 Apr 2009)

There is not enough work for all the solicitors that are now qualified in ireland. Simple as that. Just look at the numbers being admitted in the last ten years.

While i understand the law society simply provides regulation and education and it is a free market i do believe that when the number ofapplications rose dramitically they should have carried out some research as to the long term consequences and simply advised new applicants of the risks. It would have been then up to people to decide if they still wanted to enter the profession. The number of people on ppc 1 was a cause for talk amongst students two/three years ago so i do believe the law society should have been a little more pro-active.

As to what people do now, who knows, ask the "careers advice officer" in the law society....whoops, they havent been appointed yet!!!

My advice, australia!! "g'day, g'day, how's it going, nothing to say just say g'day, g'day, g'day and you'll be right!!"


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## MOB (8 Apr 2009)

get real said:


> While i understand .....................it is a free market



Correct.  This is a crucial point.



get real said:


> I do believe that when the number ofapplications rose dramitically they should have carried out some research as to the long term consequences and simply advised new applicants of the risks. It would have been then up to people to decide if they still wanted to enter the profession. The number of people on ppc 1 was a cause for talk amongst students two/three years ago so i do believe the law society should have been a little more pro-active.



The numbers have been there to see.   If the Law Society do anything, anything at all, to try to reduce the number of people qualifying, they immediately draw the ire of the Competition Authority and ( worse) Joe Duffy.  So it's just not something they can do.



get real said:


> As to what people do now, who knows, ask the "careers advice officer" in the law society....whoops, they havent been appointed yet!!!



An unfair criticism.  The post has been advertised;  A more relevant point is perhaps to ask whether this is something in which the Law Society should be involved.

It has always been the case that many people who qualify as lawyers do not ultimately go on to have a career practicing law.   One difference today is that the legal qualification does not so easily give you something to fall back on.  If you qualify as a lawyer and don't go into practice, (or if you quit practice to try something else), then within 3 or 4 years the chances are that you will never go (or go back) into the practice of law.  So it perhaps more easily feels that the time spent qualifying as a lawyer has been 'wasted'.  I disagree -but I can see how someone who cannot secure an apprenticeship (or, having qualified cannot secure a position) might feel otherwise.


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## MoonTheLoon (8 Apr 2009)

Law Society can't limit numbers, but even people with smaller volumes of files would still earn a living if the fees were relatively stable. I can never understand the paradox in competition law when solicitors are supposed to compete with each other on fees (lest they be accused of price fixing) whereas estate agents and GPs have set percentage fees and no one deviates. Or in the case of taximen where they can be fined if they deviate from the set fee! Sheer madness.

We have too many solicitors for the size of the country but it's only solicitors themselves who are to blame. If a solicitor signs up an apprentice then the Law Society cannot refuse that candidate except if they fail the entrance exam. A lot of people go into law for the wrong reasons. Every Tom Dick and Harry you hear about these days is a solicitor.

A previous poster mentioned 20k insurance premium per solicitor on the horizon, I heard 12k from someone working in the field.  Just wondering if the 20k is a guess or if you've heard something as well?


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## Complainer (8 Apr 2009)

MoonTheLoon said:


> Law Society can't limit numbers, but even people with smaller volumes of files would still earn a living if the fees were relatively stable. I can never understand the paradox in competition law when solicitors are supposed to compete with each other on fees (lest they be accused of price fixing) whereas estate agents and GPs have set percentage fees and no one deviates. Or in the case of taximen where they can be fined if they deviate from the set fee! Sheer madness.


Are you living in the real world? Estate agents always negotiate on the percentage fee, and I've never heard of a GP charging a percentage fee - percentage of what?

There is no barrier to taximen reducing their fees, and indeed one taxi company on DNS is advertising a 20% off deal.


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## MoonTheLoon (8 Apr 2009)

Complainer said:


> Are you living in the real world? Estate agents always negotiate on the percentage fee, and I've never heard of a GP charging a percentage fee - percentage of what?
> 
> There is no barrier to taximen reducing their fees, and indeed one taxi company on DNS is advertising a 20% off deal.


 
Unfortunately I'm not living in the real world - I'm too sucked into the law my brain has turned to mush hehe

Apologies I meant estate agents charge a percentage fee, and GPs don't undercut each other - I inadvertently said percentage fee for both - sorry

I don't think you're right about the taxi issue, I know of many taximen who were fined for not recalibrating their meters to account for the new fare increase which they didn't want.

Estate agents fees are scandalous for the work they do compared to solicitors, and most are still a percentage.


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## whitegrass (8 Apr 2009)

If it correct to assume that there is not enough work available to keep all Solicitors going, where will the casualties occur?  Tier 1 firms have less commercial and corporate work available - particularly commercial conveyancing e.g. recent injunction application ?!?  Tier 1 and 2 firms are moving or will move downstream for corporate work.  Commodity, or practically any, conveyancing in lower tier firms is a distant memory.  PIAB has all but stopped personal injury litigation.  Commercial litigation is available but there is an uncertainty in getting paid.  Employment law is busy but pays poorly and family law is very much dependant upon the property market.  There are some other niche areas like pensions law which are no doubt busy but expertise are concentrated in a few firms.  Probate is also somewhat dependant upon the health of the property (and stock) market.

All in all I would crudely guess that there is 40% over capacity in the Solicitors' profession.  This will result in a combination of large scale redundancies, decreasing incomes for all but a very few and decreased pricing based on a simple demand and supply equasion.

The legal profession is heavily aligned with the health of the economy.  The numbers in the profession far exceed the current and medium term requirement of the economy.

I can see very poor prospects for a great many Solicitors.


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## MoonTheLoon (8 Apr 2009)

whitegrass said:


> If it correct to assume that there is not enough work available to keep all Solicitors going, where will the casualties occur? Tier 1 firms have less commercial and corporate work available - particularly commercial conveyancing e.g. recent injunction application ?!? Tier 1 and 2 firms are moving or will move downstream for corporate work. Commodity, or practically any, conveyancing in lower tier firms is a distant memory. PIAB has all but stopped personal injury litigation. Commercial litigation is available but there is an uncertainty in getting paid. Employment law is busy but pays poorly and family law is very much dependant upon the property market. There are some other niche areas like pensions law which are no doubt busy but expertise are concentrated in a few firms. Probate is also somewhat dependant upon the health of the property (and stock) market.
> 
> All in all I would crudely guess that there is 40% over capacity in the Solicitors' profession. This will result in a combination of large scale redundancies, decreasing incomes for all but a very few and decreased pricing based on a simple demand and supply equasion.
> 
> ...


 
Hallelujah, brilliant post.  

There's plenty of work in employment and debt collection that can make you a busy fool but very little cash to fund the hours involved.  

Only work funded by free legal aid is secure in the present climate.


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