CitySolicitor


Jackson: Implications for a multi-generational profession


Tom Spiller, Browne Jacobson LLP


Tom is a litigation solicitor practising in the London office of Browne Jacobson LLP. Career highlights include acting in the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover and the litigation surrounding the activities of Bernard L Madoff.


“If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both.” – Lord Alfred Denning, OM, PC 1899 - 1999


In April 2013 the British civil justice system will be radically changed. Whilst most members of the public are unaware of the impending seismic change (and why should they be, a good justice system enters the lives of the public as little as possible) we in the legal sector have been doom-mongering and self- flagellating aplenty.


The reforms come against the backdrop of economic recession, law firms failing, industry consolidation and an over-supply of lawyers. We are constantly told that the state of the profession is bad and getting worse, but is it?


Hard Times?


It seems like the situation for those trying to enter the profession could not be bleaker. On the most recently available figures, in 2009-2010 there were 11,370 full-time and 3,140 part-time LPC places and only 4,874 newly registered training contracts, meaning that over 9,000 graduates would not find employment within the profession that year alone. Once a would-be lawyer has academically qualified they potentially face years of paralegalling before they get a chance of a training contract, and even those fortunate enough to obtain one face increased competition for a smaller number of permanent roles. Any graduate enquiring into taking the LPC is met by this stark warning on the SRA website:


“We do not provide careers advice; however, before applying to a Legal Practice Course you should consider your route to qualification… if you are planning to apply for a training contract you need to know that the number of employers able to offer training contracts may be dictated by economic factors and


6 • City Solicitor • Issue 81


can be significantly lower than the number of Legal Practice Course graduates.”


A senior partner of a national firm recently told me that he felt for those trying to enter the profession today. He pointed out the absurd situation that he found himself in when looking through a high achieving applicant’s CV, thinking about how proud that person’s parents must be, and then tossing the application into the waste bin along with around fifty other similar cases.


The doom-mongers in the litigation sector paint an equally dire picture for those within the profession. Since the announcement of the Jackson Report there has been talk of increasing amounts of satellite litigation arising from the new damages based agreements, fewer claims generally as a result of new funding arrangements, a credit crunch-esque restriction of availability of litigation funding as well as the perennial woes of downward pressure on rates and increased professional indemnity insurance premiums.


Anyone listening to these voices would be forgiven for deciding that we are doomed indeed, Captain Mainwaring, however, such straitened times call for perspective rather than shirt-rending.


The State of Things


The British legal sector is a source of prestige, international soft power and GDP for this country. Throughout the world the quality of our legal system is considered to be so great that many major corporate deals are done subject to the law of England with many international parties choosing to subject themselves to the decision of


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