Unemployed law students

[Milzy]

Is that because he, rather than you, found you, rather than him, to be a snooty, xenophobic git?

The other way around, he looks down on all those who earn sub 40k a year. My wife is from the Philippines so I couldn't possibly be xenophobic could I?

 

[nickyboy]

The subjects students study at A level and, subsequently, degree level change very slowly in response to changes in the job market. The sausage machine continues to churn out law graduates at the usual rate but at the moment there aren't the traineeships to absorb this. In truth, the lack of traineeships in the law is a short term blip. The big employment is in company law and these big corporate law firms have had a really bad time of it in the past 5 years. They make their money from transactions (like buying and selling companies) and transactional activity has been extremely low.
But it is a blip and as the economy picks up the big law firms will respond by recruiting more trainees

Long term career-wise, if you can hack it as a lawyer, accountant, doctor, architect etc etc then you will do just fine

 

[Hill Wimp]

Four years ago my God daughter lived with me so she could complete her art foundation course at a nearby college. She had achieved numerous A* grades in her last year at school yet found it hard to write an essay, didn't know where the Low Countries were in Europe, didn't know how to précis a piece of work or understand the meaning if the word miscellaneous. When I mentioned Harvard referencing she looked blank.

I was gob smacked .

 

[swee'pea99]

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
- Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II

 

[TVC]

I've rehearsed this elsewhere, but working in an Engineering company we can not find young people to join the company at a technical level. We NEED 18 year olds to come and learn with us to be the strong cell leaders, machinists and technicians for the future. Instead, the pool of smart but not academic boys and girls we have drawn on for the last 250 years are not available, they are at Uni, struggling and unhappy doing courses that will leave them unemployable and in debt. Meanwhile we are left with those who are incapable of getting themselves out of bed in the morning.

I'm just grateful that we have the East Europeans to fill the massive void left by the stupid politically led social experement 'higher education for all'.

 

[Crankarm]

Wasn't it Tony Blair that decided that everyone should have an opportunity of a university education... thereby wrecking the education system in the UK leading to tuition fees and the rest....

TB was a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. One of his cases was representing an employer who did not wish to pay it's female factory workers holiday pay. He lost the case.

 

[Crankarm]

Not really Blair's fault. Wilson and Thatcher expanded the university system massively. As politicians are they like to make grand statements or ride on waves. The university expansion was already very well established and carried on under Blair. It's just instead of taking the credit, as it is an unpopular policy he gets the blame. Not really a Blair thing, many countries in the world have even higher percentages going to university than we do. The theory is largely based on the idea of a knowledge based economy.

And didn't Thatcher qualify as a barrister specialising in tax law?

 

[swee'pea99]

It is a stunning indictment of the educational system, the astonishing stupidity of so many of those who emerge weighed down with its prizes. Having 'won', they naturally assume that the basic game, and all its rules, are sound; and, by extension, that the failure of the 'failures' is the failures' fault.

I've never forgotten seeing one of those reality tv series, where they recreated a secondary modern school. Without getting into the bigger argument, much less going all misty eyed about the past educational system (which I suspect was overall, in truth, worse than the one we have now), it was striking how eagerly many of the assembled kids (chosen on account of their current 'failure' status, and hence precisely the kind of 11 plus-failing kids who would have gone to a SM school) took to things like bricklaying, and car mechanics.

They really, positively, enjoyed it. Hands on doing stuff, rather than sitting in a classroom while all the 'clever' kids left them behind. They thrived on it. Both the doing of it, and the doing of *something* that they found they were good at, that they could succeed in, and that - not least - they knew was clearly leading them toward a future in which they could have an identity, a role and a status, and be sure of a roof over their head and enough cash to keep worry at bay.

Why do 'clever' people assume there's only one kind of clever? Because it's the kind of clever they happen to have. Idiots.

 

[Hill Wimp]

It is a stunning indictment of the educational system, the astonishing stupidity of so many of those who emerge weighed down with its prizes. Having 'won', they naturally assume that the basic game, and all its rules, are sound; and, by extension, that the failure of the 'failures' is the failures' fault.

I've never forgotten seeing one of those reality tv series, where they recreated a secondary modern school. Without getting into the bigger argument, much less going all misty eyed about the past educational system (which I suspect was overall, in truth, worse than the one we have now), it was striking how eagerly many of the assembled kids (chosen on account of their current 'failure' status, and hence precisely the kind of 11 plus-failing kids who would have gone to a SM school) took to things like bricklaying, and car mechanics.

They really, positively, enjoyed it. Hands on doing stuff, rather than sitting in a classroom while all the 'clever' kids left them behind. They thrived on it. Both the doing of it, and the doing of *something* that they found they were good at, that they could succeed in, and that - not least - they knew was clearly leading them toward a future in which they could have an identity, a role and a status, and be sure of a roof over their head and enough cash to keep worry at bay.

Why do 'clever' people assume there's only one kind of clever? Because it's the kind of clever they happen to have. Idiots.

Well said that ma...... frog

 

[Crankarm]

A father is telling a friend how proud he is of his children. He tells him he has three children; the youngest child is studying medicine but the cost over 6 years is unreal, eye watering, but that they should be fine and set for life when they become a consultant. He tells the friend that his middle child is studying law and he is again very proud that his child will become a successful barrister and the huge cost will eventually be worth while. There is an awkward pause. The friend then asks about his oldest. The father replies that, oh ....... he's a plumber and he's paying for his younger brother and sister to study medicine and law.

 

[srw]

That Law in Action piece was just a snapshot. In a different year you could have heard the programme sounding off about the difficulty law firms faced finding suitable trainee lawyers. More than many professions, law depends on economic cycles and students tend to pick their career depending on prospects at the time, not on prospects six years later when they qualify; economic cycles are usually longer than that, so you often have a mis-match between trainees and places..

Relevant knowledge? Experience? Evidence? You do realise you're in the cafe?

Have another cup of tea glass of claret.

 

[srw]

Degrees weren't supposed to be vocational, I thought. They were meant to find people who had the brains to think original thoughts and then stretch that capability to its utmost. Then they could go out into the world and make a difference.

Among the traditional degree subjects, law and medicine were the exception.

The problem is that the corporate world does not want original thinkers because they are dangerous to it; it wants salarymen.

Tosh. The corporate world is crying out for people with imagination and original brains - to the extent that it's currently quite common for companies to run innovation schemes to get new ideas out of people's heads and into implementation.

 

[srw]

The other way around, he looks down on all those who earn sub 40k a year. My wife is from the Philippines so I couldn't possibly be xenophobic could I?

 

[srw]

I've rehearsed this elsewhere, but working in an Engineering company we can not find young people to join the company at a technical level. We NEED 18 year olds to come and learn with us to be the strong cell leaders, machinists and technicians for the future. Instead, the pool of smart but not academic boys and girls we have drawn on for the last 250 years are not available, they are at Uni, struggling and unhappy doing courses that will leave them unemployable and in debt.

No you don't. You need people. Those people can just as well be 21-year-old graduates as 18-year-old school leavers.

 

[TVC]

No you don't. You need people. Those people can just as well be 21-year-old graduates as 18-year-old school leavers.

Nope, armed with their degrees they think working in an Engineering company and getting their hands dirty is benieth them.