Australia’s legal market is awash with new graduates looking for work, and the oversupply has led to high levels of career stress for current law students, a new survey has found.
Australia’s legal market is awash with new graduates looking for work, and the oversupply has led to high levels of career stress for current law students, a new survey has found.
Conducted by national law student website Survive Law, the Australian Law Student Survey found that 42 percent of students feel stressed most or all of the time about finding a relevant graduate job.
Survive Law’s Chris Paver said the highly competitive graduate job market is a key cause of students’ career stress.
“It is no secret that the employment market for entry-level lawyers is very competitive, and this appears to be causing stress for a large number of law students who are worried about finding work.”
The survey also found that law schools may not be providing students with adequate support to as they move into legal profession after graduating. Law schools took a hit with 60 percent of respondents saying that law faculties should do more to help students secure graduate roles.
“The survey shows that many students want their law schools to do more when it comes helping students to secure graduate roles and providing career information, including careers outside of the traditional law firm career path,” said Paver.
The survey also found however, that 75 percent of students had not used university career support services.
The Australian Law Student Survey is an annual project that aims to find out what law students really think about studying law. Conducted in November and December 2014, the latest survey attracted 1,581 responses, with students answering a range of questions about study, wellbeing and their intended career path post-study.
