With declining numbers of training contracts on offer, increasingly few law students are looking for a career in the legal profession. This year's Law Student Report reveals all

2013 has been another year of change in the law student body. The number of law students wanting to become solicitors has fallen again for the third year in a row. Now just 60% of law students want to pursue a career as a solicitor, compared to 80% in 2010. 

There has been a fairly steep decrease in just 12 months and a depressing trend over three years, perhaps reflecting the difficulty prospective lawyers are finding in getting a training contract. The number wanting a career outside law altogether has also gone up from 6% three years ago to 16% this year.

lsr-front-page-1-webRelated to this trend, this year's Law Student Report confirms the demise of banking as an alternative career choice among law students. The most popular alternative career choice among respondents is academia/teaching followed by the civil service and management consultancy. 

Meanwhile, with more than 80 law firms signing up to the PRIME work experience scheme over the past year or so, there is already a realisation on the part of law firms' recruitment departments that equal opportunities, as well as diversity, are big issues for the law student population. However, when asked if they perceive differences between law firms in terms of equal opportunities and diversity schemes, only 12.7% of students think there is any real variation.

In last year's survey, we asked about educational background for the first time and discovered that 30% of students were privately educated and the other 70% went to state schools. This year, the results are largely the same – with 31% being privately educated and 69% in the public education system.

The top five reasons that influence students to apply for a training contract at a particular firm are career prospects post-qualification; the brand of the firm; gender equality; impressions gained from a summer placement and the availability of LPC funding. Salary and benefits are lower priorities, according to our survey, with perceptions of work/life balance and a law firm's performance at a graduate fair further down the list. 

Another area which is changing is the provision of legal education and training at university and postgraduate level. The introduction of annual university fees of up to £9,000 has made law firms, students, universities and law schools rethink their strategies. 

A number of firms have already announced university bursaries for underprivileged students. BPP and The University of Law (formerly College of Law) have already set themselves up to compete with universities in offering LLBs which are more targeted at people who want to practise law later on. Those LLBs will focus more on the commercial aspects of being a lawyer. 

In this year's report, we analyse in detail the attributes of the country's top law faculties and law schools, as seen by their students. We will be awarding accreditations for the best law faculty and best law school based on undergraduate and postgraduate courses and teaching. 

The whole process of legal education looks likely to become more streamlined and efficient. Several law firms are trying to help their future trainees to become more commercial in outlook well before they start their traineeship. 

In terms of the firms doing well in this year's survey, the top international firm is once again Allen & Overy, but Linklaters is much closer this year in second place. In the national grouping, Irwin Mitchell moves up from third place last year to first this year with a very impressive score on diversity. Macfarlanes leads the City group and Jones Day tops the US table for the second successive year.