A career in law used to be considered as safe as houses, but that was before the property slump. With the market for conveyancing now virtually nonexistent, newly qualified solicitors say they are finding it almost impossible to get jobs.

Some legal firms are letting staff go, and more redundancies are likely to follow, unless the property and construction industries make a comeback later this year. The decline in property-related legal work, both commercial and residential, means that redundancies are particularly accute in the field of conveyancing. Many new solicitors got jobs in conveyancing during the property boom, and obviously that’s dead and there’s no sign of it returning. Many solicitors who had been devoted entirely to conveyancing work will have little or nothing to do at the moment. When the market was booming, firms hired a huge amount of newly qualified solicitors, but that market is now nonexistent. There have been redundancies within legal firms. And there'll be more. Law firms have to be realistic if they haven’t got work for their staff.

If you've been affected by the recent turmoil in the housing and financial markets, tell us about your experiences by contributing to the discussion here!

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