Trainee Barristers' £60k Starter
Trainee solicitors eat your hearts out, the Times reports that One Essex Court in the Temple, has just made four offers to students of £60,000 a year for their two-year pupillage starting in October next year. Even by its own standards that’s a significant leap – they only offered £45,000 this year. Even the top law firms pay trainees less; the Magic Circle firms all pay around £40,000 to trainees and on qualification it goes up to around the …
Trainee solicitors eat your hearts out, the Times reports that One Essex Court in the Temple, has just made four offers to students of £60,000 a year for their two-year pupillage starting in October next year. Even by its own standards that’s a significant leap – they only offered £45,000 this year.
Even the top law firms pay trainees less; the Magic Circle firms all pay around £40,000 to trainees and on qualification it goes up to around the £60,000 mark. If you want to do better than that you have to go American – the likes of Shearman & Sterling pay around £70 – £80,000 to NQs. Although, rates have fallen back a bit this year due to the credit crunch!
The minimum salary for trainees in law firms is now £18,590 and outside London £16,650, the Law Society says. However, it also states that the average salary for a trainee solicitor across all regions in England and Wales was £23,865.
August 6, 2009
No wonder they are so pleased with themselves.
August 6, 2009
I think that goes for well-paid lawyers in general to be fair. £60k is a hell of a lot for someone not actually qualified to do a great deal.
August 6, 2009
They had better be every bit the hot shots for that much.
August 7, 2009
What the report doesn’t mention is the costs it takes to qualify as a solicitor. £15k student loan, followed by £10k to pay for the Legal Practice course and a further £5k to cover rent and living expenses whilst studying the LPC full time. The course is particularly intense and does not really allow for students to work part time to help fund such expenses.
There are 10 trainees for every training contract available so there is no guarantee of a job.
The lucky Trainee Solicitors that find work are starting their careers £30k in debt and for the first two years only earning £16k a year!
Then once qualification comes around most NQ will be earning approximately £25k a year. Still much less than their overall debt which is amounting interest all the time.
August 7, 2009
Wow-shows you can still do well financially as a young person at this law thing (not that I did for 12 years, but that`s a whole different and not very edifying story where legal aid rates played a part).
August 7, 2009
What strikes me is, do they really need to be offering this much in the current environment? Looks like a bit of showboating to get some publicity to me rather that sensible economic management.
August 13, 2009
“There are 10 trainees for every training contract available” – this may be the case at some of the biggest firms but the Law Society has recently said that around 7000 students completed the LPC in 2008 and there are approx 6000 training contracts available this year so, whilst the current market is undoubtedly tough, the odds might be slightly better than 1 in 10.
The Surgeon
Trainee Solicitor Surgery
http://www.traineesolicitorsurgery.co.uk
http://www.traineesolicitorsurgery.co.uk
August 26, 2009
People should actually consider the fact that this article is comparing the best paying chambers to the worst paying solicitors firms. When you consider a magic circle firm will pay trainees around 35k to train (rising to 60k on qualification) and pay for the LPC (11k) and also often give future trainees a grant of around 6k just to live on then things seem to be on a more even keel seeing as chambers will not offer any financial support to their pupils who will, since leaving university, probably have done a masters, the BVC and spent a couple of years working lesser jobs to get experience.