![Sample our Law journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5942/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Law.jpg"})
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Law Society of England and Wales for funding the project, Sumitra Vignaendra of the Law Society who commented on the proposal for the qualitative work and Liz Duff and Michael Shiner for their work on the project generally, Julian Webb for commenting on an earlier draft of this article and Avis Whyte for research assistance, including with the fieldwork. I would also like to thank the three anonymous referees, whose comments were valuable and stimulating.
Notes
[1] J. Currie, Lawyer in the house, The Lawyer, 7 October 2002.
[2] This level of personality organisation comprises also beliefs and attitudes: see G.J. Rathjen, The impact of legal education on the beliefs, attitudes and values of law students 46, (1976) Tennessee Law Review 85 at 87.
[3] See, for example, E. Durkheim, Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, translation by C. Brookfield (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1957); and P. Atkinson, The reproduction of the professional community, in: R. Dingwall & P. Lewis (Eds) The Sociology of the Professions (Basingstoke, Hampshire, The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1983), p. 224.
[5] Ibid.
[6] W.H. Simon, The Practice of Justice (Cambridge, MA & London, Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 1.
[7] Ibid.
[8] D.L. Rhode, In the Interests of Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession (Oxford & New York, Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 213.
[9] Ibid., particularly Ch. 2.
[10] A. Kronman, The Lost Lawyer (Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press, 1993).
[11] W. Twining, Pericles and the plumber (1967) 83 Law Quarterly Review 396; and note the discussion of Kronman, and the general themes dealt with here, in W. Twining, Pericles regained (1998) 1 Legal Ethics 131.
[12] Sherr anticipated increasing demand for efficiency resulting in an enhanced division of labour, para-legal employees performing routine aspects of cases reserving qualified lawyers for ‘crises’, thereby turning the attractive, vocational element of legal work into routine: A. Sherr, Of super heroes and slaves: images of the work of the legal professional (1995) 48 Current Legal Problems 327.
[13] A. Goldsmith, Heroes or technicians? The moral capacities of tomorrow's lawyers (1996) Journal of Professional Legal Education 1.
[14] Sugarman contends that, while lawyers' work, organisation and culture change over time, “ideology sustains apparently divergent conceptions of the profession, while asserting a common culture and history binding lawyers together as a community”: D. Sugarman, Simple images and complex realities: English lawyers and their relationship to business and politics, 1750–1950 (1993) 11 Law and History Review 257 at 258.
[15] P. McDonald, The class of ‘81’—a glance at the social class composition of recruits to the legal profession (1982) 9 Journal of Law and Society 267.
[16] R. Moorhead & F. Boyle, Quality of life and trainee solicitors: a survey (1995) 2 International Journal of the Legal Profession 217 at 218.
[17] L.K. Hellman, The effects of law office work on the formation of law students' professional values: observation, explanation, optimization (1991) 4 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 537; D.L. Rhode, Ethics by the pervasive method (1992) 42 Journal of Legal Ethics 31.
[18] Student disengagement from ethical issues when exposed to organisational life is debated across disciplines: see D. Lowry, Moral awareness of business students: the implications for the teaching of business ethics, 2004 conference paper.
[19] J. Currie, AWS [Association of Women Solicitors]: why do so many young lawyers quit the profession? (February 2003) Lawyer 2B 7.
[20] J. Siems, Equality and Diversity: Women Solicitors Volume I (London, Law Society, 2004), p. 119.
[21] L. Duff & L. Webley, Equality and Diversity: Women Solicitors Volume II (London, Law Society, 2004).
[22] H. Sommerlad, Managerialism and the legal profession: a new professional paradigm (1995) 2 International Journal of the Legal Profession 159.
[23] H. Sommerlad, The implementation of quality initiatives and the New Public Management in the legal aid sector in England and Wales (1999) 6 International Journal of the Legal Profession 311.
[24] A.M. Francis, Legal executives and the phantom of legal professionalism: the rise of the third branch of the legal profession (2002) 9 International Journal of the Legal Profession 5.
[25] P. Sanderson & H. Sommerlad, Professionalism, discrimination, difference and choice in women's experience in law jobs, in: P. Thomas (Ed.) Discriminating Lawyers (London, Cavendish Publishing Limited, 2000), p. 155 at p. 161; and see H. Sommerlad & P. Sanderson, The legal labour market and the training needs of women returners in the United Kingdom (1997) 49 Journal of Vocational Education and Training 45.
[26] Kronman, op. cit.
[27] A. Evans & J. Palermo, Australian law students' perceptions of their values: interim results in the first year—2001—of a three-year empirical assessment (2002) 5 Legal Ethics 103.
[28] F. Cownie, Alternative visions in legal education (2004) 6 Legal Ethics 159 at 174.
[29] Careers in Government Legal Service are presented quite literally as a form of public service in which financial benefits are surrendered in order to work in the public good: J. Currie, For Queen and country (June 2002) Lawyer 2B 50.
[30] See, for example, Pound's assertion that a profession is an occupation pursued in a spirit of public service: R. Pound, The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modern Times: With Particular Reference to the Bar Associations in the United States (St. Paul, MN, West Publishing, 1953); or the discussion in G. Mungham & P.A. Thomas, Solicitors and clients: altruism or self interest?, in: Dingwall & Lewis (Eds), op. cit., p. 131.
[31] See generally, E. Freidson (Ed.), The Professions and Their Prospects (Beverley Hills, Sage Publications, 1973); and H.S. Erlanger & D.A. Klegon, Socialisation affects of professional school: the law school experience and student orientations to public interest concerns (1976) 13 Law and Society Review 11.
[32] T.F. Willging & T.G. Dunn, The moral development of the law student: theory and data on legal education (1982) 32 Journal of Legal Education 306.
[33] D. Schleef, Empty ethics and reasonable responsibility: vocabularies of motive among law and business students (1997) 22 Law and Social Inquiry 619.
[34] Schleef's study of American law degree students found that students' positions shifted from extreme self-interest or altruism towards a mid-point consensus, whereby a desire to “help the poor” transformed into support for zealous advocacy and pro bono representation (Ibid.). Gender differences in relation to these values are also, apparently, few in law schools: see J. Taber, M.T. Grant, M.T. Huser, R.B. Norman, J.R. Sutton, C.C. Wong, L.E. Parker & C. Picard, Gender, legal education, and the legal profession: an empirical study of Stanford law students and graduates (1988) 40 Stanford Law Review 1209.
[35] A substantial downswing in determination to work in the public interest or public sector is common: see S. Homer & L. Schwartz, Admitted but not accepted: outsiders take an inside look at law school (1989–90) Berkeley Women's Law Journal 1 at 42; R. Granfield, Making Elite Lawyers (New York, Routledge, 1992) or, if such interest is maintained during college years, it is not reflected by employment decisions (Erlanger & Klegon, op. cit.) or legal education reinforces original attitudes to careers: J.M. Hedegard, The impact of legal education: an in-depth examination of career-relevant interests, attitudes, and personality traits among first-year law students (1979) 4 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 791 at 805.
[36] Many are snapshots of a single cohort or longitudinal studies of changes in students through the college years. Issues of scale and cost often limit the generalisation of data. Hedegard's study (Ibid.), for example is of the law school at a Mormon college, Brigham Young University, with an exclusively Mormon intake, raising issues of reliability. Similarly, Schleef's (op. cit.) was a relatively small-scale longitudinal study.
[37] A study of the efficacy of vocational training by Goriely and Williams used qualitative methods and distinguished between training in large and small firms: T. Goriely & T. Williams, The Impact of the New Training Scheme: Report on a Qualitative Study (London, The Law Society, 1996). Similarly, the larger project from which this article is drawn makes the same distinctions: A. Boon, E. Duff & M. Shiner, Career paths and choices in a highly differentiated profession: the position of newly qualified solicitors (2001) 64 Modern Law Review 563. Both studies, however, tend to concentrate on technical issues of education, terms and conditions of employment, etc.
[38] A. Sherr & J. Webb, Law students, the external market, and socialisation: do we make them turn to the City? (1989) 16(2) Journal of Law and Society 225.
[39] Law students associate public service with ‘helping people’, usually poor or otherwise disadvantaged members of society. This is explicit in Schleef's study (op. cit.) and implicit in Sherr & Webb's study (op. cit.).
[40] David Halpern, Entry into the Legal Professions: The Law Student Cohort Study Years 1 and 2 (London, The Law Society, 1994), Ch. 9.
[41] M. Shiner & T. Newburn, Entry into the Legal Professions: Law Student Cohort Study Year 3 (London, Law Society, 1995).
[42] M. Shiner, Entry into the Legal Professions: The Law Student Cohort Study Year 4 (London, Law Society, 1997).
[43] Ibid.
[44] M. Shiner, Entry into the Legal Professions: The Law Student Cohort Study Year 5 (London, Law Society, 1999).
[45] E. Duff, M. Shiner, A. Boon & A. Whyte, Entry into the Legal Professions: The Law Student Cohort Study Year 6 (London, Law Society, 2000).
[46] Ibid.
[47] Halpern, op. cit. noted but was unable to explain this (see p. 99).
[48] The Law Society cohort study continuously noted the difficulties of using survey based attitude measures to understand satisfaction ratings: Shiner (1999), op. cit., p. 72. Moorhead & Boyle (op. cit., at p. 233) also found relatively high levels of satisfaction with the quality of working life and current position, yet dissatisfaction with other aspects of experience.
[49] B.G. Glaser & A.L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago, Aldine, 1967); A. Strauss & J. Corbin, Grounded theory methodology, in: N.K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds) Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications, 1998), p. 158.
[50] Y.S. Lincoln & E.G. Guba, Naturalistic Inquiry (Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications, 1985), p. 305; R.A. Singleton, B.C. Straits & M.M. Straits, Approaches to Social Research (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 56.
[51] Lincoln & Guba, op. cit., pp. 39–43.
[52] S. Silbey & A. Sarat, Reconstituting the sociology of law, in: D. Silverman & J. Gubrium (Eds) The Politics of Fieldwork: Beyond Enlightenment (Beverly Hills, CA, Sage Publications, 1989), p. 150. This position is justified by Weber's observation that “whatever method we use, we can only impose an order of relationships on reality, not exhaust it”: Julien Freund, The Sociology of Max Weber, translation by Mary Ilford (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 1968).
[53] The work formed the qualitative element of the sixth, and final, survey. The participants described here were selected from the 1,524 respondents to a questionnaire sent to 3,258 respondents to previous surveys. Some 90% of respondents to the survey were in private practice, the other 10% were working in industrial and commercial and public sectors.
[54] All interviewees were guaranteed anonymity. Identifying features have been deleted from the data; each participant has been allocated a name not their own.
[55] All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. For the purpose of this article most quotes have been edited. Where a significant amount of material has been deleted this is indicated thus, ‘…’ but hesitations and repetitions have been excised, where this is possible without altering meaning, for fluency and economy.
[56] Self-classification allowed some inconsistencies. For example, although the first six participants in identified themselves as belonging to High Street firms, Chris's firm is small and based on good quality criminal work while Bridget's firm is the largest in a main county town and has a considerable amount of commercial work. Among those employed in commercial firms, Larry works for one of the biggest and wealthiest while Isobel works for a firm that is considerably smaller. Nadil and Ophelia work for commercial firms in major cities in the North and Midlands.
[57] Unfortunately, it was not possible to select for ethnicity from the information available at that time.
[58] British universities are classified here according to status and this usually equates to the period of recognition as a university. The medieval universities, Oxford and Cambridge, have the highest status. The redbrick universities, including London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Liverpool and Reading, received their Royal charters in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the rapid expansion post-war Nottingham and Exeter, the ‘plate glass’ universities for their incorporation of modernist buildings, were followed in the 1950s by the Colleges of Advanced Technology, Bath, Brunel, Loughborough. In the 1960s, following the Robins Report, seven ‘campus universities’, including York, Sussex and Essex, were built on green field sites. In 1992 the polytechnics, also created following Robins, achieved university status.
[59] This may reflect employer preference, as well as the disadvantage of random selection over purposive sampling in relation to qualitative work.
[60] Qualitative interviewees may have imperfect recollection or understanding of their own motives, adopting post facto rationalisations of behaviour or striving to have past actions reflect current identity. Narratives are likely to be repeated accounts and it is perhaps more likely that details will change or events be re-interpreted: see S. Gudmundsdottir, The teller, the tale, and the one being told: the narrative nature of the research interview (1996) 26 Curriculum Inquiry 293 at 298, 300 and 304.
[61] Lincoln & Guba, op. cit., pp. 39–43.
[62] R. Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (New York & London, W.W. Norton & Company, 2000).
[63] Schleef, op. cit.
[64] A. Sarat & W. Felstiner, Law and social relations: vocabularies of motive in lawyer/client interactions (1988) 22 Law and Society Review 737.
[65] C.W. Mills, Situated actions and vocabularies of motive (1940) American Sociological Review 904.
[66] Sennett, op. cit., at p. 10.
[67] Halpern, op. cit., Ch. 7.
[68] Ibid., p. 46.
[69] One in five law students had a close relative in the profession and among home students there were ten times more than would be expected by chance. Whereas 6% of pupils are at independent schools, 18% of new university, 26% of other university and 45% of Oxbridge law students were at independent schools at age 14 (Ibid., Ch. 5).
[70] R. Stevens, Law schools and law students (1973) 59 Virginia Law Review 551.
[71] McDonald, op. cit.
[72] Moorhead & Boyle, op. cit., at p. 233.
[73] Halpern, op. cit., at p. 39.
[74] Shiner (1997, 1999), op. cit.; and V. Bermingham & J. Hodgson, Desiderata: what lawyers want from their recruits (2001) 35 The Law Teacher 1.
[75] Ibid.
[76] See, e.g. L. Kohlberg, Continuities in childhood and adult moral development revisited, in: P. Baltes & K.W. Schaie (Eds) Lifespan Developmental Psychology: Personality and Socialisation (New York, Academic Press, 1973).
[77] Willging & Dunn, op. cit.
[78] Examples of common intellectual development are in theoretical and abstract modes of conceptualisation and evaluation, tolerance of ambiguity and independent in judgement. Law students tend to be more confident, dominant, expressive and assertive (see literature review in Hedegard, op. cit.).
[79] G. Andrew, H. Benjamin, A. Kaszniack, B. Sales & S.B. Shanfield, The role of legal education in producing psychological distress among law students and lawyers (1986) American Bar Foundation Research Journal 225; and P. Goodrich, Law-induced anxiety: legists, anti-lawyers and the boredom of legality (2000) 9(1) Social and Legal Studies 143.
[80] Sherr & Webb, op. cit.
[81] Criminal Law was consistently the preferred subject area for practice. Family Law began as second preference but, by year three, had been supplanted by Welfare Law and Labour Law. Company Law, the only commercial subject to feature, began at three but, by the end of their third year, had slipped to fifth preference (Ibid.).
[82] Halpern, op. cit., p. 60.
[83] A. M. Francis, Out of touch and out of time: lawyers, their leaders and collective mobility within the legal profession (2004) 24 Legal Studies 322; G. Hanlon, Lawyers, the State and the Market: Professionalism Revisited (Basingstoke, Hampshire, Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999).
[84] Shiner (1997), op. cit., Ch. 6.
[85] This appeared to be related to the existence of a one-to-one relationship between partners and trainees: Moorhead & Boyle, op. cit., at p. 22.
[86] Shiner & Newburn, op. cit., Ch. 6.
[87] Goriely & Williams, op. cit.
[88] Duff et al., op. cit., p. 41.
[89] Ibid., p. 230.
[90] Sommerlad (1999), op. cit., p. 177.
[91] Sanderson & Sommerlad, op. cit., p. 54.
[92] Ibid., p. 51.
[93] Siems, op. cit., p. 96.
[94] Ibid.
[95] Halpern, op. cit., p. 57.
[96] Ibid., p. 59.
[97] Hanlon, op. cit.
[98] A.R. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling (Berkely, CA, University of California Press, 1983).
[99] C.A. Wellington & J.R. Bryson, At face value? Image consultancy, emotional labour and professional work (2001) 35 Sociology 933.
[100] L.C. Harris, The emotional labour of barristers: an exploration of emotional labour by status professionals (2002) 39 Journal of Management Studies 553.
[101] M. Korczynski, Communities of coping: collective emotional labour in service work (2003) 10 Organization 55.
[102] Ibid., at p. 57.
[103] L.C. Harris, op. cit., at p. 940.
[104] J. O'Connor, Newly qualified retention rates take hammering (2003) 17 The Lawyer 3.
[105] Ibid.
[106] R. Lee, ‘Up or out’—means or ends? Staff retention in large firms, in: Thomas (Ed.), op. cit.
[107] Sennett, op. cit., at p. 30.
[108] Ibid., p. 120.
[109] See further, Siems, op. cit.; Duff & Webley, op. cit.; and Sanderson & Sommerlad, op. cit.
[110] Some 50% of prospective entrants to the profession expect to make partner by the age of 35. See G. Charles, In the know (2004) 3 Lawyer 2B 28. (Note that this research was with ‘students’ in general. Just over half were undergraduates and the method of their selection is unclear.)
[111] M. Gallanter & T. Pallay, Tournament of Lawyers: The Growth and Transformation of the Big Law Firm (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Sanderson & Sommerlad, op. cit.
[112] A survey of assistant solicitors conducted by The City of London Law Society found that 31% wanted another career, 45% regretted their choice of profession and 80% said that they were looking for other job opportunities: P. Harris, The CLLS/Legal Week survey of assistant solicitors, Legal Week, 7 November 2002; and www.legalweek.net.
[113] Law students associate public service with ‘helping people’, usually poor or otherwise disadvantaged members of society. This is explicit in Schleef's study (op. cit.) and implicit in Sherr & Webb's study (op. cit.).
[114] C. Stanley, Enterprising lawyers: changes in the market for legal services (1991) 25 Law Teacher 44.
[115] See Erlanger & Klegon, op. cit., at p. 32.
[116] J. Webb, The law school as a source of occupational socialisation—issues of research design (1998) 22 Law Teacher 99.
[117] Stevens, op. cit.
[118] Ibid.
[119] Shiner (1999), op. cit., pp. 32–33.
[120] Moorhead & Boyle, op. cit., p. 234.
[121] A.S. Watson, a psychologist, speculated that the psychological desire to control one's environment is the overriding goal and contains some elements, the legitimation of verbal aggression, concern for justice and curiosity about others' lives, that are central to the work of lawyers: Watson, The quest for professional competence: psychological aspects of legal education (1968) 37 University of Cincinnati Law Review 91 at 101 (referred to in Willging & Dunn, op. cit.).
[122] Willging & Dunn, op. cit., at p. 331.
[123] L.C. Harris, op. cit., at p. 556.
[124] See, e.g. J. Flood, Megalawyering in the global order: the cultural, social and economic transformation of global legal practice (1996) International Journal of the Legal Profession 169.
[125] Gallanter & Pallay, op. cit.
[126] Moorhead & Boyle, op. cit., p. 236.
[127] Sanderson & Sommerlad, op. cit., p. 182.
[128] Ibid.
[129] Charles, op. cit.
[130] McDonald, op. cit.
[131] Ibid., at p. 273.
[132] Kronman, op. cit.
[133] Simon, op. cit.
[134] Kronman, op. cit., at p. 367.
[135] Simon, op. cit., at p. 25.
[136] A. Boon & J. Levin, The Ethics and Conduct of Lawyers in England and Wales (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2001), p. 18 and Ch. 9; but see also A. Flores, Professional Ideals (Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 1998).
[137] Kronman, op. cit., at p. 366.
[138] See further J. Webb, Being a lawyer/being a human being (2003) 5 Legal Ethics 130.
[139] For example, in proposing a regime where conflict of interest rules would not apply where parties have equal power and compatible interests (Simon, op. cit., at p. 131).
[140] I. Houkes, P.P.M. Janssen, J. de Jonge & A.B. Bakker, Specific determinants of intrinsic work motivation, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention: a multisample longitudinal study (2003) 76 Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology 427.
[141] It is known that in major jurisdictions many law students do not enter practice and may study law without any intention of doing so: R.E. Rosen, Educating law students to be business leaders (2002) 9 International Journal of the Legal Profession 27.
[142] A. Boon, Ethics in legal education and training: four reports, three jurisdictions and a prospectus (2002) 5 Legal Ethics 34.
[143] One assessment is that only 17% do not intend to practice: V. Wilson, Firm assessments (1999) 13 The Lawyer 31.
[144] Charles, op. cit.
[145] D. Lortie, Laymen to lawmen: law school, careers and professional socialization (1959) 29 Harvard Education Review 352.
[146] Sherr, op. cit., at p. 338.
[147] Francis and MacDonald found that part time students are out of touch or ill-informed about what is required of modern professionals. If educational providers cannot improve their prospects, as they suggest, they can at least ensure that they are well-informed: A.M. Francis & I.W. McDonald, All dressed up and nowhere to go? Part time law students and the legal profession, in: Thomas (Ed.), op. cit., p. 41.
[148] Rosen, op. cit.
[149] See also Boon & Levin, op. cit., p. 52; D. Nicolson & J. Webb, Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 286; and A.C. Hutchinson, Beyond black-letterism: ethics in law and legal education (1999) 33 Law Teacher 301 at 305; and A.C. Hutchinson, Taking it personally: legal ethics and client selection (1998) 2 Legal Ethics 168.