Legal News

Is Law an ?Elitist? Profession? Discuss.

By Ashby Jones

The U.K.-based publication “The Lawyer” has an interesting — if slightly perplexing, at least to our U.S.-based sensibilities — story out today on class issues and the practice of law. Click here to check it out.

The article focuses on a recent paper issued by the British government calling upon the legal industry to remove barriers keeping folks from the lower socio-economic classes from joining the legal profession. According to the story, the report, which was chaired by the U.K.’s social-mobility czar, Alan Milburn (social-mobility czar?), says that professions like the practice of law have a “closed shop” mentality and have only become more elitist over time.

As evidence, the report highlights the following:

Writes Milburn: "Of course not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer – and not everyone will want to be – but those with ability and aptitude need a fair crack of the whip to realise their aspirations."

Among the recommendations in the report is that professions and universities publish information on the social background of their intake.

According to the article, part of the problem might also lie with the so-called “training contract system,” which some say favors those who can afford to fund education and grant access to the right social networks.

LBers, upon first reading, it strikes us perhaps more as a U.K.-based issue than one we see here in the U.S. Of course, the upper classes in the U.S. have a leg up in getting into the schools that feed to the large elite law firms, but breaking into the practice of law in the U.S., generally speaking, doesn’t necessarily seem to require huge socio-economic advantages. It’s also often said that the U.K. experiences less class mobility than does the U.S.

On the other hand, perhaps we’re just experiencing a definitional gap. Perhaps it’s just that we in the U.S. have historically used other factors (such as race) as a proxy for class, and therefore have tackled the issue, albeit from slightly different angles.

In any event, we realize that a blog post (even with its attendant commentary) isn’t the ideal forum to hash out these rather weighty issues. But such hurdles haven’t in the past stopped us from asking your thoughts. So feel free to let us know what you think.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 22, 2009 (boomark / email).