Equal Access to Training Contracts: Promoting Social Mobility in the UK's Legal Apprenticeship System

Jan 30, 2024

Written By Ben Ffrancon Dowds

Like many other industries, the legal sector struggles with diversity. To combat this, addressing social mobility is a key part of many firms’ recruitment drives. Legal apprenticeships are one way the legal world is trying to create a more diverse and representative legal community.

The current landscape of legal apprenticeships

The two pathways to qualification via apprenticeship are the solicitor apprenticeship and the graduate apprenticeship. These apprenticeships offer an alternative and accessible way to qualify as a solicitor without going down the traditional training contract route:

Solicitor apprenticeships

These apprenticeships will typically see you working four days a week and taking one day a week to study. It will take five to six years to complete, but you might be able to shave some time off if you have some previous legal work experience.

The minimum academic requirements for a solicitor apprenticeship is five Cs at GCSE (including English and Maths) and three Cs at A-level (or equivalent). However, some firms will have their own more stringent entry requirements, and most firms take mitigating factors into consideration.

Towards the end of your apprenticeship, like all aspiring solicitors, you will have to sit the centralised SQE exams. These are split into two parts: SQE1 (a written exam) and SQE2 (a practical assessment).

Graduate apprenticeships

If you have an undergraduate degree (in any subject), you could complete a graduate apprenticeship instead. These are shorter than solicitor apprenticeships and will usually take two to three years to complete. These apprenticeships are quite new and differ from firm to firm in terms of content and structure. Just like any other aspiring solicitor, you’ll have to sit the SQE1 and SQE2 towards the end of your apprenticeship.

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Challenges in achieving equal access

The traditional route to becoming a solicitor is notoriously expensive, especially if your postgraduate study (until recently the LPC, now the SQE) is not sponsored by a firm. This has long put a career as a solicitor out of reach for many people from low-income backgrounds. Although legal apprenticeships are not an immediate cure for this financial inequality, they are a way to mitigate it by funding your education and paying you a salary.

Another source of inequality is education: not everyone can afford to get an undergraduate degree and then the necessary postgraduate qualification. Some people also face bias based on the ranking of the university they attended. Although bias is still a problem in the legal profession, these apprenticeships are challenging this and offering people without a degree a route to qualifying as a solicitor.

As these apprenticeships continue to evolve and grow in popularity, we can hope to see an improvement in access for people with less traditional backgrounds, both socio-economically and academically.

Initiatives and best practices for inclusive legal apprenticeships

Legal apprenticeships have been introduced in smaller firms right up to Magic Circle firms, who both offer their solicitor apprentices a starting salary well above minimum wage. This helps to ease financial restrictions to the profession, showing a commitment to breaking down socio-economic barriers.

As well as offering a salary while you train, many law firms also have a partnership with an education institution such as the University of Law. All solicitor apprenticeships will cover the costs of all the studies associated with your apprenticeship, partly sponsored by the government. Through these partnerships, law firms can foster a more inclusive pipeline of legal talent by removing many of the financial barriers to qualification.

Mentoring is also a key part of these apprenticeships, and apprentices will more than likely be assigned a mentor to help guide them through the process.

Recommendations for a more inclusive future

Legal apprenticeships are a great start to address inequality in the legal profession, but there is still plenty more work to do. While the popularity of apprenticeships has been skyrocketing in recent years, the number of people qualifying using this route is still relatively low: only 242 apprentices qualified as solicitors in 2019/2020. What’s needed next is for more and more firms to take on apprentices as part of their graduate recruitment initiatives.

Then, inclusion needs to be widened even further. People can’t apply for these apprenticeships if they don’t know they exist, so law firms and schools across the country should start to reach out to the types of young people that are underrepresented in the legal profession. This could be through information sessions, workshops, and mentorship programmes.

Conclusion

The legal profession needs more diversity and the apprenticeships discussed in this article are a great way to address the issue, particularly on a socio-economic level. Equal access to legal apprenticeships is key to fostering a more diverse legal workforce.

Everyone will interact with the legal world at some point in their lives, so the more diversity within the profession, the better it is for society as a whole. Legal professionals, law firms, and educational institutions all have a responsibility to foster a more inclusive legal profession, so get involved in any initiatives that your school, university, or place of work might run that promote social mobility.

If you think a solicitor apprenticeship or graduate apprenticeship could be your route to becoming a solicitor, check to see if any firms near you offer apprenticeships. Don’t be afraid to reach out to professionals at these firms to find out more.

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