According to some of the more optimistic reports, the first clouds of recession may be lifting. However, the immediate prognosis for lawyers still seems to be rather bleak – an impression added to by an article in The Times last week entitled ‘UK legal industry faces loss of 10,000 lawyers‘. Although a fall in the number of lawyers is likely to be met with cheers in some quarters, what does it mean for us as a profession?
For one thing, it’s likely to work as a deterrent for entry into the profession at trainee level, and we’re also likely to lose a lot of young talented NQs. While some of these losses are, to an extent, sadly inevitable, if taken too far, might they result in firms cutting off their future oxygen supply? The abandonment of an entire generation of lawyers is likely to create a gap that the firms would take several years to fill.
