As has been mentioned before, there is a campaign being waged among junior lawyers in the Law Society to resist moves to abolish the minimum salary for trainee solicitors. The Junior Lawyers Division of the society has branded the decision to deregulate as having "effectively slammed the door shut in the faces of those from lower socio-economic groups trying to enter the profession". Now the opinion has emerged that women will be 'disproportionately affected' by the move. The opinion is that of...erm, the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS).
AWS chairwoman Joy Van-Cooten and AWS Law Society Council member Sarah Austin issued a joint statement, in which they said: "We are concerned it will discourage able women away from the profession and the result will be a return to a less diverse profession that will reflect practitioners' means rather than their merit." They didn't say why.
The reality will shock many from the 'it's their own fault they're poor' brigade. From August 2014, firms need only pay trainee solicitors at the national minimum wage. The real scandal is that that is currently only £6.08 an hour. Having said that, the current minimum salary for trainee solicitors is only 40% more than that – that will surprise many expert witnesses who are up in arms about their own fee cut.
What is more shocking is that the legal minimum figure is all that is paid to many thousands of people in "very responsible" jobs. Those are the people who look after our elderly and sick. One commentator used the term to compare the SRA move to the salaries paid to trainee airline pilot in the US.
Elsewhere on this site many will have seen the report of the vetoing by Andrew Lansley of the risk assessment associated with reform of the NHS. Of course, all that did was confirm to us all that there was something to hide. It has been followed by the call from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee for private companies who work for the Government to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FoI).
According to the committee, as reported in the Law Society Gazette: "In the interests of transparency, where private companies provide public services funded by the taxpayer, those areas of their business which are publicly funded should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act provision."
One legal blog recently put it thus: "The Government knows what you're doing; does it know what it's doing?" Now, the statement could be: "The Government wants everyone to know what you're doing, but it sure as hell doesn't want YOU to know what it's doing."
The hunt is also on for the worst legal pun in a news story, following The Guardian's description of Kenny Dalglish's exit from Liverpool as "slaughter in May" – a reference to the law firm Slaughter and May. The news section of legal blog Professionals in Law, The Epilogue, is looking for even worse ones. Tweet them on @PiL _Careers. Maybe we could see 'Punning' as a new category in the Expert Witness Directory.
Chris Stokes