No excuses..

My absence from blogging is inexcusable really. But I’m back. And now is as good a time as any to let you know how things have been going - in a purely professional sense, of course. Early predictions were that 2012 would be the most difficult year for law grads – pan-European economic uncertainty adding to an already imbalanced global financial wreck – and the latest pale of dubiousness being doused over us by the Alternative Business Structure (ABS) stuff. In the first quarter, it's difficult to say whether the predictions are accurate. But will changes to the legal market be a good or a bad thing for us?

Good:

ABSs mean more legal services which in turn should mean more jobs, more graduate opportunities, more opportunity for experience, alternatives to training contracts, alternatives to the LPC, training which is more attuned to modern society.

Bad:

Will all the effort/expenditure/time shovelled into the LPC mean nothing in this new world? If ABSs introduce non-traditional training could it threaten the reputation of the profession and thus make it a less attractive prospect for wannabe lawyers? To compete with ABSs and limit costs might traditional firms cut down on trainee recruitment?

And what else must be discussed? A topic that has featured high on my agenda for some time but has remained largely unexplored is whether legal education providers should be doing more to get more folks into jobs and/or limit the numbers doing the LPC/BPTC. I will probably write about this topic for either The Lawyer/Lawyer2B or LegalCheek - stay tuned.  

Speaking of which, what else is going on in the legal blogosphere? Lots of things. But I’ve closely monitored the rapid growth of LegalCheek.com - brainchild of Alex Aldridge; a website for which I was an early contributor and remain as a long-term absentee. I will be writing for LegalCheek again.  

So much change we anticipate; too much worry we suffer.  A difficult year lies ahead, but 2012 is looking oddly promising, I think.