Law Soc to ditch minimum pay in effort to up training contracts

The Law Society's regulation board is set to scrap its minimum salary requirement in an effort to grow the number of training contract places available to students.

Despite growth in the number of students taking the LPC over the past five years, the number of available training contracts has remained almost static.

In 2000 there were 5,280 places and in 2005 there were 5,732. The minimum salary as of August 2006 was £17,527 for trainees in Central London and £15,605 for everyone else.

A spokesperson for the Law Society said: "In April the regulation board decided on the rates for the minimum salary for 2006-07, but agreed to a fundamental review of the minimum salary policy in view of the wider changes to the training contract."

The review is part of a much larger rethink about the routes to legal qualification, which could make the traditional training contract redundant.

Earlier this year the Law Society proposed a scheme whereby trainees could register themselves with the Law Society regulation board and then plan their own portfolio and training with a regulation board assessor.