Press Release: Wednesday 18th September 2024
The Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) today [18 September 2024] publishes a series of research reports and makes recommendations for reforms to tackle economic and other barriers facing aspiring and early career legal professionals and to increase diversity in the legal professions.
The Breaking Down Barriers reports follow an extensive period of research and consultation following a request from the Minister for Justice for the LSRA to consider the “economic and other barriers that continue to be faced by young solicitors and barristers,” as part of its ongoing work to open up the delivery of legal professional training.
Containing 32 recommendations across themes such as opening up pathways to qualification, the costs of joining the legal professions, workplace culture and diversity and inclusion, the LSRA’s reports and recommendations have been submitted to the Minister for Justice.
The LSRA makes its recommendations following detailed consideration of significant new evidence including the LSRA’s first comprehensive survey, with B&A, of student, trainee and early career barristers and solicitors, recently qualified but non-practising solicitors and barristers, and also law undergraduates at 15 higher education institutes.
The research also includes testimonies from early career practising solicitors and barristers about their experiences in qualifying and working as lawyers, which establish that aspiring and early career solicitors and barristers face a range of economic and other barriers on their career pathways and that these barriers are magnified for certain groups and have a negative impact on diversity in the legal professions.
Breaking Down Barriers Reports – Findings
The Authority’s research findings report summarises the following key barriers and challenges facing early career solicitors and barristers:
- The most significant barriers to entry to the legal professions are the costs of qualification and the length of time it takes post-graduation before a prospective solicitor or barrister can expect to qualify and begin to earn a reasonable salary. Both branches of the profession face challenges in opening access to individuals from more diverse backgrounds because of the significant costs of professional training and the mechanisms for obtaining and undertaking practical training. For candidates with different needs and responsibilities, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds, the direct and indirect costs involved may act as a deterrent to entry to the professions, sending them instead into other career pathways.
- There is a lack of easily available, full and clear information for prospective solicitors and barristers about training and pupillage opportunities and selection processes, as well as the various career pathways that may be available. The research found that the system for qualifying barristers to identify and secure a master for their mandatory pupillage year at the Law Library was opaque and ad hoc, with scant information available online. For solicitors, there is considerably more information available on securing training contracts, although this is not all in one place and the pathway to traineeships with large law firms are most visible due to their significant recruitment drives targeting certain undergraduates. The professional bodies all have information on their websites as well as outreach programmes and initiatives with schools and universities.
- The main challenges facing early career solicitors are long working hours and lack of workplace flexibility and the impact of these on work-life balance. 77% of trainee and practising solicitors surveyed cited both working hours and impact on personal life as key challenges, followed by lack of workplace flexibility (52%). Despite these challenges, junior solicitors show moderate levels of career satisfaction, with 59% agreeing the benefits of qualifying outweigh the challenges.
- Early career self-employed barristers face considerable challenges in earning a living, with job security and better remuneration the key motivations for barristers taking up employed positions. 76% of barrister students and practising barristers surveyed cited as key challenges the time it takes to build up a practice, followed by difficulties getting paid (67%); and remuneration (62%). Despite these challenges, junior barristers show moderate levels of career satisfaction, with 57% agreeing the benefits of qualifying outweigh the challenges.
- There is a perception that the legal professions lack diversity and are heavily reliant on prior connections and networks, which may discourage candidates from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds from considering the professions as a career. The LSRA survey found that 14% of solicitors, 23% of barristers and 28% of law undergraduates agree that the professions are diverse (representative of the population).
Breaking Down Barriers Reports – Recommendations
The LSRA makes a total of 32 recommendations for reform which are designed to improve equity of access and entry into the legal professions and over time to achieve greater diversity within the professions. Given the multi-faceted nature of the entry barriers and early career challenges identified, the Authority’s recommendations call for range of actions to be taken by various stakeholders including itself. The recommendations are wide ranging, and include that:
- The Authority should collaborate with law firms and the professional bodies on the introduction of measures to ensure positive workplace culture and employee wellbeing;
- The Authority and the Bar of Ireland should explore innovative solutions to develop appropriate financial supports for barrister pupils; and
- Demographic data should be collected and published to establish a diversity profile of the legal professions and to inform and monitor actions to encourage greater diversity.
Many of the recommendations build upon the LSRA’s earlier proposals for reform of legal practitioner education and training contained in its Setting Standards report from November 2022. A key component of these reforms is the establishment of an independent Legal Practitioner Education and Training Committee (LPET Committee) with a range of functions, including “encouraging diversity in legal education and training”. Accordingly, several of the Breaking Down Barriers recommendations are addressed to the LPET Committee, once established.
Commenting on the reports and recommendations, the LSRA’s Chief Executive Dr Brian Doherty said:
“The LSRA is committed to playing the fullest role possible in addressing entry barriers to careers in the legal professions and ensuring that early career solicitors and barristers can thrive in their careers regardless of their background.
“The insights provided by the LSRA’s extensive research and consultations highlight enormous opportunities to make things better by changing the way legal professional education and training operates and the way the legal services sector does business. The LSRA acknowledges that since it began examining this area, a range of initiatives and reforms have been introduced by the professional bodies for solicitors and barristers, the Law Society of Ireland, the Bar of Ireland and the Honorable Society of King’s Inns. These may in themselves help to alleviate some of the barriers to entry and early career challenges that have been identified in the LSRA’s research.
“We look forward to working with all stakeholders in delivering on an implementation plan to tackle the economic and other barriers that continue to be faced by aspiring and early career legal professionals with the common goal of building a more inclusive and diverse legal services sector.”
The LSRA’s reports are available for download (PDF)
Research Report and Findings Report
Breaking Down Barriers: Exploring the challenges facing early career legal professionals, March 2022
Recommendations Report and Final Report to Minister
Breaking Down Barriers: Final Report to Minister for Justice, January 2024
Notes for Editors:
The Legal Services Regulatory Authority is an independent statutory body set up under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 with a range of functions. It is responsible for regulating the provision of legal services by legal practitioners (barristers and solicitors) and ensuring the maintenance and improvement of standards in the provision of legal services. The Authority also has a statutory duty to keep under review and make recommendations to the Minister for Justice in respect of the availability and quality of education and training (including ongoing training) for the solicitors’ and barristers’ professions.
The submission to the Minister for Justice of the Breaking Down Barriers reports and recommendations represents another significant milestone in the Authority’s extensive work since 2018 in reporting to the Minister and making recommendations in relation to the education and training arrangements in the State for legal practitioners.
These include a 2020 report with recommendations for reform of legal practitioner education and training, Setting Standards: Legal Practitioner Education and Training.