Access to legal work experience and its role in the (re)production of legal professional identity

UKCLE PDF project

Project team: Andrew Francis, Keele University (e-mail: a.m.francis@law.keele.ac.uk) and Hilary Sommerlad, Professor of Socio Legal Studies at University of Leicester (previously at Centre for Research into Diversity in the Professions, Leeds Metropolitan University).
Project summary: an exploration of the role of legal work experience and its importance as a gateway to a career in the legal profession
Start date: October 2008
UKCLE funding: £3,430 (phase 1); £1,836 (phase 2: October 2009 – September 2010)

---

Project update: Interim findings available (see downloads at bottom of the page). Andrew and Hilary presented a paper on the project at the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2010. Their slides, containing key findings, are embedded below, and you can also listen to a recording of the session – see the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2010 slidecasts page for details. The session was also blogged on Zeugma by Paul Maharg.

Despite increases in the numbers of women and members of BME groups entering the solicitors profession and the widespread endorsement of diversity and equality strategies, access to the legal profession remains unequal, with class in particular a crucial mediator of entry. This raises important questions about recruitment practices and the profession’s conceptualisation of merit.

Work experience represents a key way of obtaining entry to the profession for those without access to the traditional ‘networks’, however it seems likely that a general recruitment bias towards graduates from the pre-1992 university sector is replicated in the allocation of placements.

Existing literature (Goffman, 1957; Morley 2007) highlights the importance of being able to demonstrate a convincing professional identity for those seeking access to the profession. In part, this may be a paper exercise – does the applicant possess the correct credentials? However, even on an application form, students are expected to be able to structure a convincing narrative of their fit for the firm. Within the vacation placement itself, understandings of appropriate behaviour or professional interactions may be even less obvious – particularly to those without prior experience of the legal profession.

As well as being one of the main gateways to the profession, work experience also represents the beginning of the process of learning how to acquire a professional identity. For many law students it is their first encounter with the reality of legal employment and culture, an initiation into ‘becoming a lawyer’.

Project aims

Up to now there has been no research into the key role played by work experience in mediating access to the profession and reproducing professional identity, or into the ways in which greater understanding of the profession’s expectations might enhance law students’ future employability.

This two year project aims to:

• explore the processes of legal work experience – how it is obtained, how students experience it and how employers ‘manage’ it
• review different teaching and learning strategies designed to enhance students’ understanding of the profession
• develop theoretical understandings of the processes of professional socialisation
• contribute to debates surrounding the effectiveness of either ‘embedding’ such specific employability skills across the curricula and/or in PDP activities, or in standalone credit carrying modules
• organise a one-day workshop to share best practice within legal education and the profession
• develop from the research data, module and PDP evaluation, and workshop a series of web resources to support employability strategies within law schools

Methodology

The research combined survey methods with qualitative work in two research populations – LLB students (at two contrasting institutions) and legal (private practice) employers. The students completed a follow up questionnaire at the beginning of their 3rd year,and a smaller number participated in focus groups to explore the developing themes.

The following questions were investigated in the first year:

• the procedures and criteria used by firms (particularly those in the corporate sector) in offering work placements
• how firms structure the placement; for instance, the rationale for ‘sugar-coating’ the experience
• students’ experiences of placements, including variables which affect how the embryonic process of professional socialisation is experienced and the effects of the intense competition for traineeships – how well do students feel their legal education has equipped them for securing work experience?
• the rationales offered by firms in selecting placement students as trainees – interpretations of merit, etc
• the role of placements in impeding, or assisting in, progress towards a diverse and equitable profession
• the ways in which knowledge of the profession’s recruitment processes can be embedded within teaching and learning activities – what factors are likely to shape direct employer engagement in the undergraduate curriculum?

In the second year of the project, the two cohorts of students will be tracked into their third year. Questionnaire surveys will be conducted with both cohorts towards the end of the first semester of their third year. This survey will be used to explore more effectively the link between socio-economic background and formal vacation placements and the links between informal and formal periods of work experience. Follow up focus groups will be conducted, to explore the processes of work placements in more detail.

The second year will explore the following:

• the extent to which students have secured informal experience during the course of their second year
• the extent to which students have been successful in applying for formal vacation schemes, during what has been a difficult recruitment cycle
• how effectively stand-alone modules and PDP activities enhance student knowledge and understanding of the legal recruitment sector

The findings of the first year of the project were presented to the students (through either a standalone module or as part of PDP activities), who were invited to use the research evidence for critical discussion (and to assist the development of their own employability skills).

On one level, through research evidence such as this, we can simply provide our students with information to which they may not have previously had access. But are they able to act on this information? Are we able to provide them with the opportunities to acquire the habitus, which will ensure a more comfortable passage into the professional field? Can learning and teaching strategies and interventions bestow appropriate ‘cultural capital’ on students, who would otherwise struggle for access into the profession? In the words of one senior partner with a leading commercial firm, “some institutions have a resonance in the air” enabling students to know what is required. Is it possible for us within legal education to create such a resonance? And if so, are we not simply contributing to the reproduction of legal professional identity by so doing?

First year outcomes

The first year of research revealed strong associations amongst such linked variables as socio-economic background, connections to the legal profession, high UCAS tariff points and informal work experience (particularly at an early stage). While the firms prioritised formal academic criteria, they were also clear that students needed to be able to demonstrate a broader set of skills, attributes and understanding of legal practice in both their applications and their subsequent performance on formal vacation schemes. Although there is clearly an opportunity for legal educators to intervene in terms of addressing gaps in knowledge and understanding about legal practice and the importance of work experience in securing access to the profession, the strength of the associations of prior experiences and credentials with success in securing vacation schemes and negotiating the placement is not known.

Given the reduction in the availability of formal vacation schemes, and the fact that such schemes are not even offered on a widespread basis among some sectors of the profession, the second year of the study aims to consider the extent to which different students continue to secure informally arranged work experience. This data will help shape how and when legal educators construct teaching and learning strategies and practices designed to enhance their students’ employability.

Note: the term ‘work experience’ can encompass a range of situations. For the purposes of this study the primary focus is:

• informally arranged legal work experience – from school age onwards, often arranged through personal contacts or following direct, ‘cold’ applications to law firms)
• formal vacation placements – competitive, usually paid periods of structured work experience of between 2-4 weeks in duration; said to play an integral, if not exclusive, role in the largest firms’ recruitment processes

Last Modified: 4 November 2010