More needs to be done to attract young Derry lawyers into high street practices, committee told

Transcript

00:00 It's just coming from the neighbourhoods and the communities and knowing a lot of young,

00:04 given my kids, they're all in their late 20s, but a lot of their friends studied law.

00:09 They've all been attracted into the private sector because of their analytical skills

00:13 and the financial, particularly my own kids, the likes of financial services.

00:17 They're not seen as attractive.

00:19 So there's obviously a piece of work to do, particularly in Derry, we have a fantastic

00:25 law degree programme.

00:26 Young graduates coming out, but they're snapped up straight away into the likes of pharmaceutical

00:32 companies, into the likes of research companies and particularly the likes of financial services

00:37 because they're paying a real good salary and it's local and it's a 95.

00:42 So I'm conscious obviously there's a bigger piece of work regarding the profession and

00:46 how we can encourage and support.

00:49 What have brought with us this, sorry, I just wanted to mention this, brought with us this

00:54 report on the solicitor profession, which if the clerk agrees, I'll leave with you,

00:58 that will give you a lot of interesting information.

01:01 There are about 3000 solicitors in private practice at the minute in Northern Ireland.

01:06 More than half of them are now female.

01:09 When I started training many, many years ago, there were 17% of the class were female.

01:16 This year it's 71%.

01:17 So it's becoming a female profession and their expectations are different and they want to

01:23 go and work in large commercial firms because it's just a better offer.

01:28 So we've got this remarkable economy where you have two extremes.

01:32 You have Belfast has more large international law firms than anywhere outside the city of

01:38 London, quite remarkable.

01:40 And then we also have these alternative legal service providers as well who are hoovering

01:45 up graduates by the hundred.

01:47 And on the other hand, half of our firms, just over half of our firms are still one

01:52 and two solicitor practices and they are the high street firms.

01:56 Our problem is if we don't sustain the high street firms and legal aid would be one of

02:01 the, one of the income flows that they will need.

02:04 If we don't do that, they will go.