Our complex legal system offers a wide variety of career options and the legal profession has seen a steady rise in diverse job opportunities. If you choose to qualify as a solicitor, you become a member of the Law Society and you will be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Why choose a career in law?
- Diverse career opportunities - a wide variety of career choices (solicitors, barristers, paralegals, judges, consultants, academics, mediators). There are also many options open to those who choose to be a solicitor.
- Diverse practice areas - the range of work is growing all the time as new areas of specialisation emerge within the legal system, offering the chance to specialise by subject (tax, crime, family, civil, IP, competition and many more).
- Intellectual challenge - legal systems, case law, changing laws and unique cases mean lawyers are working with conceptually challenging and complex issues.
- Status - you will be highly educated and qualified, and you will belong to an elite profession.
- Client facing - you will develop the expertise, knowledge and professional skills to help people from a variety of backgrounds. You may work with big business clients, local authorities, or those accused of criminal activity. Whoever they are, they are your client and you will help resolve their legal problems.
- Global interaction - legal systems and big business cross borders. Globalisation of the legal profession demands a world view.
- Fast moving environment - the law is always changing.
Law career facts
- In 2015-16, 23,855 UK students and 33,010 overseas students applied to study law at undergraduate level in England and Wales, out of whom 17,335 UK students and 22,320 overseas students were accepted on to courses.
- Women made up 67 per cent of students accepted on to university law degree courses.
- Overseas students made up 21 per cent of those accepted.
- Students from minority ethnic groups accounted for 35.7 per cent of UK student starting a first degree law course in 2015.
The Law Society now represents more solicitors from diverse backgrounds than at any time in the profession’s history.