Despite recent attempts by supervisory bodies to curb enthusiasm for the legal profession, UCAS reports record numbers of students starting law courses this year. A total of 18,394 students have signed up to enjoy the rigours of legal academia; that’s an increase of 1.2% on last year which also set a new record.

Both prongs of the profession have tried to manage expectations about the potential careeer opportunities available. The Law Society intends to launch a campaign targeting university and secondary school students, warning them of the risks involved in pursuing a legal career including information on the costs as well as the dwindling number of training contracts. Meanwhile a BVC working party recommended the introduction of a test to filter out students who do not have a realistic chance of passing the BVC and to close the gap between the number of students undertaking the course and the number of pupillages.

According to the Law Society, 7,000 people completed the Legal Practice Course in 2008, but there are only 6,000 training contracts available this year. And from 2003 and 2007 the number of students enrolling on the BVC rose from 1,332 to 1,932, while during the same period the number of pupillages steadily fell to around 500.

But something should be remembered about these figures. Not all of this year’s law students will want to become lawyers, some will just consider it a good degree to have on their CV. And even those who miss out on training contracts will be better placed for most jobs than say a history of modern art student.

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