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Legal Life 2020: Generation Z - law students and graduates in 2020
Business memories are short, and the recent downturn will be a distant memory by 2020, with firms recruiting to meet business demand and bag emerging talent. However, some recent cost-cutting…
Business memories are short, and the recent downturn will be a distant memory by 2020, with firms recruiting to meet business demand and bag emerging talent.
However, some recent cost-cutting strategies will outlive the current crisis, and impact on young lawyers and graduates, particularly in relation to training budgets and the availability of paid work experience in the legal industry. The oversupply of graduates will mean that paid work experience will be scarce, and initiative and perseverance (rather than sending off a batch of identical summer clerkship applications) will become vital to secure both work experience and the ultimate goal of full-time employment.
The characteristics of the "average" Generation Z law student can go one of two ways. On the one hand, law continues to be taken up as a "generalist" degree - the obvious choice for anyone who graduates with a 99 in the HSC/VCE and doesn't have the stomach for medicine. Dual degrees have nurtured these multi-disciplinary students, bringing a new awareness of both commercial values and creative thinking into the profession. However, increasing barriers to entry into the legal industry may start to deter some not committed to law as their ultimate career goal.
Similarly, the increasing specialisation of legal degrees, and the considerable cost of postgraduate-only legal qualifications at universities such as Melbourne Law School, means that fence-sitting law students may find themselves in a rather uncomfortable position at the end of their degrees. In other words, only the strong will survive, making Generation Z lawyers a formidable force to be reckoned with and a valuable addition to the profession.
Laura MacIntyre is the editor of Lawyer2b
