Desperate law graduates are apparently prepared to pay for their jobs

TWENTY-TWO thousand dollars. That’s not the starting salary for this job, it’s the price you pay to work in it.

SO this is what it’s come to.

University graduates are so desperate to kickstart their careers they’re willing to pay big bucks to land their first job.

A South Australian law firm is on its way to launching a “unique opportunity” for budding lawyers, offering grads a position that will allow them to receive on the job training for two years at a cost of $22,000.

Adlawgroup, an offshoot of established Adelaide firm WBH legal, says its idea is a “direct response” to the current graduate job opportunity pool, where an oversupply of qualified young lawyers and an industry that hasn’t quite bounced back from the global financial crisis has led to a shortage of jobs for graduates.

The firm denies the project is taking “an unfair or predatory advantage of a dire situation” to get new lawyers to “buy a job”. Rather, it says it is “an exercise in participating in a unique opportunity to create new jobs and open up new markets”.

The $22,000 fee would cover the cost of training and mentoring, and fast-track the young lawyers’ careers, leaving them qualified to practise unsupervised while earning an income through their fees. The group hasn’t been able to confirm exactly what that income would be, but told news.com.au projections indicated lawyers “should comfortably be able to earn at least the national minimum standard”.

The future costs $22,000.

In South Australia, new lawyers have to do two years of supervised work before they can practice independently. The program is also supposed to deter graduates from undertaking expensive postgraduate studies as they become disillusioned by uninspiring entry level jobs figures and give up pursuing a legal career altogether.

Adlawgroup has run into some trouble trying to get the new concept up and running.

Its critics say the group is exploiting students and the business model has faced a probe from the Fair Work Ombudsman, so far without consequence.

The South Australian Law Society has ordered a review into the business model which Adlawgroup is confident will “demonstrate the soundness” and “provide potential employees with confidence” in the program.

At the moment the firm is confident it will be allowed to go ahead and newly admitted lawyers will soon be able to “be given the opportunity to invest in their own future careers” under the new business model.

If it does pass the review, the program won’t go ahead without protest, with student groups and law societies prepared to fight it.

Annika Beaty is president of Flinders Law Students Association, the law student group of a South Australian university. She told news.com.au it could be seen that the firm is “exploiting students who are willing to go to extraordinary financial lengths to secure a position after undertaking an already long and expensive degree”.

“Many of the top and mid-tier law firms around Australia who normally offer large clerkship and graduate programs have significantly reduced the number of law students they recruit for these programs since the global financial crisis,” she said.

“As a result, there are significantly fewer positions available for graduates in traditional legal career paths, causing increased competition for the available positions and increased pressure on students who are feeling uncertain about their job prospects.”

A Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney, for example, will cost around $34,827 on its own, then extra training required to practice will cost at least $8,000.

After forking out so much for the qualifications, its understandable wannabe lawyers are freaking out over graduate figures that indicate graduate employment is at an all-time low in the legal field, with around a quarter (24.7 per cent) of grads unable to secure fulltime employment within four months of finishing uni, according to Graduate Careers Australia.

Law graduate Kat Crossley says law students are well stressed out.

Kathryn Crossley is the editor of student magazine Survive Law and says students feel pressure to line up legal work experience from very early in their degrees.

“This typically intensifies as they become eligible to apply for clerkships and graduate intakes in later years,” she says.

“Some law students’ societies even run events to help students handle the stress of applying for clerkships.”

The magazine’s 2014 Australian Law Student Survey found 42 per cent of law students felt stressed most or all of the time about finding a relevant graduate job.

“And that number rises the closer the students are to graduating,” she says.

Ms Crossley graduated in 2005, and after being admitted as a lawyer, chose to pursue a media career instead. She says the response from current students to the Adlawgroup plan has been largely negative.

“They range from outraged to disheartened that after a few years of study they may have to pay to get a job.

“Anecdotally, many law students and graduates are finding it difficult to secure an entry level role in the profession, but I doubt that many would sign up for the program.”

The group is responding to a problem ... and providing a ‘social justice’ service.

Adlawgroup project manager Tina Hailstone told news.com.au the program had received around 25 applicants, after its ad was pulled from job search site Seek just one day after being listed.

She says graduates have approached the firm from as far as Western Australia looking to enter the workforce and gain the experience demanded from established employers.

“There is a huge pool of graduate and newly admitted lawyers entering the Australian market with few and limited prospects of finding employment as a lawyer,” she says.

“Without a job in a law firm, or equivalent, the newly admitted lawyer cannot get the requisite experience; without the requisite experience the newly admitted lawyer cannot pursue his or her chosen profession, the classic Catch-22 situation.”

Despite the criticism, Ms Hailstone said there was “a strong social justice element” to the Adlawgroup concept.

But student groups aren’t buying it.

News.com.au was told by a number of law student groups they planned to publicly advocate on the issue in coming weeks.

Flinders’ Law Society president Annika Beaty told news.com.au it was clear “they are taking advantage of a tough job market and the stress felt by many students regarding job prospects”.

Originally published as Desperate law graduates are apparently prepared to pay for their jobs