Feature
Issue No. 24 - August/September 2005
Law grads a windfall for business
With unemployment in South Australia at record low levels, it keeps getting harder to find quality job candidates. However, because of an oversupply, many law graduates in South Australia are finding it hard to obtain an entry-level job in the legal profession, and are revising their career intentions.
Have you considered law graduates as a potential source of employees for your organisation?
Why would you consider hiring a law graduate? I am not suggesting it as a way of getting cheap legal advice. A new graduate working as a lawyer can only obtain a restricted practising certificate, and is required to work under the supervision of an experienced lawyer for two years. But if you are in the market for graduates generally, people qualified in law could be very suitable for your business.
Many law graduates have double degrees (e.g. Economics/Law, Engineering/Law, Science/Law, International Studies/Law), or have had a prior career in another field, providing a diverse range of skills.
You’re probably thinking “Our business couldn’t afford to employ them”. However, starting salary expectations are not particularly high. The Award rate for an entry level lawyer is about $34,500 plus superannuation. The large firms do pay more than that, and those salaries can increase substantially with experience, but only a small percentage of graduates gain positions at these firms.
What’s more, the highest level of the Salaried Lawyers Award (for the fifth and subsequent years of practice) is about $55,000 plus superannuation. In smaller firms a lot of employed lawyers remain on this level of pay.
To earn big money requires very long hours of work and the ability to bring clients into the firm. Some graduates, having tasted legal practice, find that they do not enjoy it.
Major firms recruit their graduate lawyers from a pool of “summer clerks” – law students who are selected to work during the ...
