ANY Leaving Certificate student contemplating law as a career would be well advised to sit down and think carefully before filling out the CAO form. To put it mildly, the situation in relation to jobs, employment and training places in law is in an unholy mess.
As our graph shows, there has been a dramatic increase in CAO law places and in numbers going into the profession. In 1990, there were around 300 CAO places in law degrees; it has now risen to almost 600. The result has been a bottleneck as increasing numbers of graduates queue for a fixed number of training places at King's Inns (for barristers) and the Incorporated Law Society (for solicitors).
The result is that only those with first class honours law degrees were guaranteed a place in the Inns last year (most but not all with a 2:1 got in, but nobody with a 2:2), and there is a waiting period of up to 18 months to get a place in the Law Society. On top of all this has come a High Court judgment imposing an additional entrance exam for graduates entering the Law Society.
There are 50 King's Inns places and around 200 Law Society places available for close to 600 law graduates. And then there is the backlog of disappointed graduates from previous years.
Given all this it is hardly surprising that in the overall league table of graduate job placement, law graduates register the lowest job placement rate and the highest proportion going on to further study; 56 per cent of all law graduates now go on to further postgraduate study in many cases in a desperate attempt to improve their chances of getting into the Inns or the Law Society.
And for those lucky enough to get in, the job situation is not much better than the training situation. Newly trained solicitors are finding it hard to get work - and starting salaries are very low - and the drop out rate from the Bar is high. The graphs show the huge increase in the numbers of practising barristers and solicitors over the past 20 years, leaving little scope for further expansion, according to both professional bodies.
There are those who argue that divorce will generate a lot more work for lawyers, but the reality appears to be that much of this expansion has already taken place in catering for existing family law and judicial separation laws, and divorce will simply be the same thing under another name.
There are lawyers who make huge amounts of money in high profile cases such as the Beef Tribunal, but there are many more who just make ends meet. The length of time and the hard graft required to hang in there long enough to make the big time is awesome. You would certainly need parental subsidy or a part time job in another area for quite a while in the beginning.
Law Society president Ken Murphy says that from among 14 main European states Ireland is already registering the highest growth in new entrants to the legal profession; the scope for further growth is very limited.
RECOGNISED DEGREES: Choosing a law degree is complicated by the fact that some degrees have traditionally been recognised by the two professional bodies for automatic entry to their courses and others have not. These degrees provided the high road - let's call it the A route - into professional law, whereby students with such a recognised law degree could get directly into the professional course with no further tests or entrance exams.
Both bodies have also operated second or B routes of entry, whereby people with an arts or science degree - or any other non recognised law degree - could be admitted through sitting an entrance exam or doing another preliminary course.
That is still the case at King's Inns, but a High Court decision in relation to the Law Society last September has meant that everybody now has to sit an entrance exam and there is effectively no such thing as recognised degrees or automatic entry.
SOLICITORS: The High Court ruling obliges the Law Society to have all entrants sit the same entrance exam. If you want to become a solicitor, no matter what degree you take law or non law - you are in the same boat as everyone else. This decision is being appealed to the Supreme Court. But as of now, the only sensible approach for CAO applicants to adopt is that if they want to become solicitors, they will have to sit an entrance exam. The only exemption is people who already had a law degree at the time of the ruling.
In recent years the Society has taken in around 230 trainees each year and says it has no possibility of increasing this number. From this year, of course, intake will depend on the numbers who pass the entrance exam - but a graduate could pass the exam and - still have to wait maybe two years for a place to become available.
BARRISTERS: The idea of the recognised and non recognised degree still exists for the King's Inns. People with a recognised law degree are eligible to be accepted directly into the barrister's two year course. However, they have a quota of just 50 places for such graduates, so they seek a breakdown of the student's marks from the colleges and allocate places accordingly. Thus some people even with a 2:1 degree fail to get a place; they had 243 applicants all recognised law graduates - for the 50 places last year.
The law degrees which are recognised for direct entry to the Inns are: the mainstream law degrees at Trinity, UCD, and UCC; law/accounting and law/ European studies at UL; the post graduate law degree at UCG; evening law degree at UCC; law/ languages degrees at Trinity; Queen's law degree; the law/languages degrees at UCC have been given recognition in principle and this is expected to be formalised very shortly.
The following law degrees do not have recognised status with the King's Inns: corporate law at UCG; business studies/law at UCD; all private law degrees and diplomas; all British law degrees.
The only way to become a barrister if you do not have a recognised law degree is to undertake a two year diploma in legal studies at the Kings Inn's - the B route. Someone with an arts, business or science degree, or a law degree which is not recognised for A route entry could do this two year course. About 40 people from this course get accepted into the barristers' course each year.
HYBRID DEGREES: The proliferation of new hybrid - dual discipline - law degrees has increased the choice for CAO applicants, but has also increased the confusion. There is a growth in demand for people with legal training in business, industry and financial services, people who can understand law and deal with legal issues for a company, but are not practising lawyers. These degrees are mainly designed to prepare people for such careers.
Thus, for example, someone interested in working in business might prefer the corporate law degree at UCG or the business/ law degree at UCD to a traditional all law degree. Similarly, a student interested in the European dimension or perhaps export law might prefer the law/ languages degrees at Trinity and UCC, or the law/European studies degree at UL. The law/accounting combination at UL is a very attractive mix as a basis for a business career.
RTC LAW COURSES: There are two legal studies certificate courses, one in Waterford RTC and one in Letterkenny RTC. Both provide access to a one year diploma. In the case of Waterford it is in export law, for which the job opportunities are very good. Students who do well in the two diplomas have the possibility of transfer on to a number of recognised law degrees; UCC, for example, has some students from both courses in its law degrees.
Waterford also has a one year follow on degree in legal/business studies which is a very attractive option and would be as valid as any other for Law Society entrance. These courses offer an alternative to the high points university degree route.
UCG ARTS: It is possible to take legal studies - with another subject - as part of an arts degree at UCG. It is important to remember that what you end up with is an arts degree, not a law degree. But quite a few such graduates then go on to finish off with a postgraduate law degree at the university. The pitfall is that there is a very limited number of places available on the legal studies option in second arts, so only those who do really well in first year exams get placed; otherwise you end up with your other arts options.
CHOOSING A DEGREE: With all the confusion and change going on, it is very difficult for a student to decide how to choose a degree. Theoretically, with everyone subjected to an entrance exam for the Law Society, you are as well off with an arts degree as a law one; in practice, however, the chances of passing the exam must be dramatically better for the law graduate. The person with an arts degree will have to do various crash courses in law to stand any real chance.
It does mean, however, that not making the high points for a law degree is not the end of the world, and that someone with a non law degree, with additional study, could be just as well placed to become a solicitor - but not a barrister - as a law graduate.
If you want to become a professional lawyer, you are probably better off with a traditional law degree; if you are more interested in applying law in business/industry/finance, you would probably be better off with a hybrid degree.