They may save law firms from individual crisis of credit but the idea of hiring unpaid caseworkers or paralegals is fundamentally adverse to social mobility.
There are a significant number of firms in the UK reaching out to the mass of inexperienced law graduands who are desperately seeking something to put them into training contract contention.
Law graduates have to pay up to £10,000 for their LPCs so those on low incomes have to take years out to this earn money. After that they still find themselves in a huge amount of debt and necessity means they need to enter the job market as soon as possible whilst desperately trying to swing their career paths onto the legal ladder. Experience, experience, experience, is all grads have to tip favour their way - but how to get it? Vacation schemes? unpaid. Shadowing? unpaid. CAB? unpaid. volunteer? erm... unpaid. Now becoming a caseworker will often mean you are unpaid. Other caseworker positions demand experience as a prerequisite. Paralegal positions require 3 years pqe or experience giving advice - say at the CAB where you are unpaid.
Of course the system is fair. It judges on merit: If an applicant is an excellent advocate (due to all their voluntary experience) they get the job on merit: they are genuinely better, they deserve it.
So when the government advocates social mobility, and getting kids to university, bear in mind that university educates you, but education doesnt necessarily give you a boost up the career ladder - you still start at the bottom - education merely resets the plateau.
There is an answer though! Low income graduands shouldn't fret they will make it if they want it - there will always be hurdles for everyone. Sometimes you might get a break as an administrator in a nearly legal capacity. Which you then might be able to blag as caseworker-esque experience. The phone queries you answer become "advice giving": The public that wander into the office you "interview". But this needn't be the only way of only firms decided to remunerate you for your experience searching troubles: you are doing them a favour after all.
There are a significant number of firms in the UK reaching out to the mass of inexperienced law graduands who are desperately seeking something to put them into training contract contention.
Law graduates have to pay up to £10,000 for their LPCs so those on low incomes have to take years out to this earn money. After that they still find themselves in a huge amount of debt and necessity means they need to enter the job market as soon as possible whilst desperately trying to swing their career paths onto the legal ladder. Experience, experience, experience, is all grads have to tip favour their way - but how to get it? Vacation schemes? unpaid. Shadowing? unpaid. CAB? unpaid. volunteer? erm... unpaid. Now becoming a caseworker will often mean you are unpaid. Other caseworker positions demand experience as a prerequisite. Paralegal positions require 3 years pqe or experience giving advice - say at the CAB where you are unpaid.
Of course the system is fair. It judges on merit: If an applicant is an excellent advocate (due to all their voluntary experience) they get the job on merit: they are genuinely better, they deserve it.
So when the government advocates social mobility, and getting kids to university, bear in mind that university educates you, but education doesnt necessarily give you a boost up the career ladder - you still start at the bottom - education merely resets the plateau.
There is an answer though! Low income graduands shouldn't fret they will make it if they want it - there will always be hurdles for everyone. Sometimes you might get a break as an administrator in a nearly legal capacity. Which you then might be able to blag as caseworker-esque experience. The phone queries you answer become "advice giving": The public that wander into the office you "interview". But this needn't be the only way of only firms decided to remunerate you for your experience searching troubles: you are doing them a favour after all.
C, this is exactly right, glad I'm not the only one to have noticed! Even now when I'm trying to make up for my lack of mini-pupillages in a gap year while I earn money at the same time, I feel like I'll be judged because I didn't do it earlier.
ReplyDeleteBut as you say, there are options, and working at the bottom of the food chain, so long as it's the right food chain, has got to give you something!
CLG
P.s thanks for backing me up about the LSE students. When I read all of those comments I thought I must have made the rich kids up...