Many of the opportunities solicitors would have taken for granted have dried up, young people entering the profession were told yesterday, writes CONOR POPE
LAW SOCIETY of Ireland president John Costello was not sugar-coating future prospects for young lawyers in his address to the latest crop of solicitors who received their scrolls in Blackhall Place yesterday.
In the opening three minutes of his short speech, he talked of the fear, panic, anger and sense of crisis that many in the hall were feeling as they embarked on a career in which many of the opportunities they once would have taken for granted had all but dried up.
The horizon is undeniably bleak for many new solicitors and, according to Ken Murphy, director general of the Law Society, the economic downturn has “fairly devastated” the profession over the last three years.
He told The Irish Times that as recently as three years ago there was almost full employment, but the reality now is that there are currently between 1,000 and 1,300 solicitors who cannot find work in their chosen field, while many of those who have jobs are only able to work part time.
As each batch of new recruits passes through the gates of Blackhall Place, the problem is exacerbated. Each year since 2008 about 700 people have qualified. Many of these solicitors can’t find work while many of the lucky ones have been left with little choice but to accept dramatic pay cuts.
All the speakers at the ceremony spoke of the hard times ahead, but some of the graduates were more upbeat.
Andrew McGovern (31) has found a job as a practising solicitor working with a tax firm in his home town of Kilkenny.
“I do feel optimistic about the future even though I know there will be hard times ahead,” he said,
“This is a great day but one that we have to take and enjoy in isolation. I think that if we think too much about the future it could bring us down tonight.”
He said that like all his contemporaries, he had gone into the legal profession with an expectation that he would come out of it “with a big income. You expect it to pay dividends, and it is very disappointing when it doesn’t.”
Niamh O’Connor from Cork spoke with much the same mix of joy and gloom. The 26-year-old said she tended “to be the optimistic type”. She is well aware things are very tough but said: “If you allow yourself get down, you won’t get through.”
She is working in Cork but said about 30 per cent of her class have yet to find work.
Gina Dowling (27) is now working with a Dublin solicitors’ firm. “I never thought it would be like this but we still have to be upbeat and look towards the positives.
“Yes, maybe not everyone will get to practise law, but it will give people the chance to broaden their horizons and try things that they may not have considered. The economic realities we face are giving us challenges and we have no choice but to rise to those challenges.”
According to Murphy, it is newly qualified solicitors who have been hit hardest by the economic collapse, but those in the middle of their careers with substantially more financial and family commitments are also struggling.
“The economy fell off a cliff in 2008 and in some respects it is still falling,” he said.
He pointed out that when many of those who qualified yesterday started their training the world was a very different place, and their expectations would have been equally different.
“The grim reality for practising solicitors in Ireland today is an ever-increasing number of solicitors chasing a dramatically decreasing volume of work.”
He rejected suggestions that law was one of the “sheltered professions” that the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank said needed to be taken on by the Government as part of the bailout deal agreed last year.
“There is no way it can be said to be a sheltered profession. In Ireland it is in the frontline of an Arctic gale.”
Barristers face new reality 'a difficult road in the early stages'
WHILE PEOPLE might assume barristers are immune to recession, the reality is somewhat different according to some of the 120 people who were called to the Bar at the King's Inns last week.
The mood among young barristers is upbeat but tempered with a sense of realism.
Newly qualified Matthew Gahan said talk of changed times and expectations was frequent throughout his one-year course and he said no one expected to start making big money for many years. "We have been told it is going to be a difficult road and not to expect too much in the early stages."
It used to be that a barrister would wait between five and seven years before they even recouped the costs of their education but Gahan said the time-frame had been considerably extended and he said it would be closer to 10 years before he will have reached break-even point, once all the expenses accrued during his three-year degree, year in the King's Inns and two years' devilling are paid off.
No matter, we will preserve . . . I did not get into it to make a fortune," he said. "I liked the idea of being a professional arguer."
Classmate Edward Walsh was equally stoic. "Litigation is probably immune to a recession and the work might be there but the amounts people are being paid is definitely not immune," he said.
"Let's call a spade a spade, we are not getting into law simply because we have a love of justice. Undoubtedly we want to be part of the judiciary and we want to make a difference but we also want to be paid for that contribution."
He said that while people, when hearing of his recent qualification, assumed he was making a lot of money "but for the first few years we really are on the bottom rung".
CONOR POPE