One in three legal aid lawyers with less than ten years of post-qualification experience (PQE) earns less than £20,000 per year, research shows.
A Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) survey of 200 members (from trainees up to ten years PQE) found that more than half of the respondents made less than £25,000. One in ten were unpaid. Only 17% earned more than £35,000.
One lawyer living in London on £17,000 per annum said: ‘Firms are paying peanuts because they can.’ Others felt exploited by unpaid work experience.
Writing in NLJ this week, columnist Jon Robins says: ‘Three-quarters of YLAL members had at some point undertaken some form of unpaid legal work experience from internships at NGOs to paralegal work at solicitors’ firms. But it is a rite of passage that is increasingly resented by debt-laden young lawyers.’
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