In the previous issue of SA Lawyer, the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) approached legal associations in South Africa (SA) to tell us more about their associations (see ‘Associations for the legal profession’ 2022 (Sept) SA Lawyer 9).

In this issue, Production Editor, Kathleen Kriel, continues with the article and spoke to Employ a Lawyer.

Employ a Lawyer

What is the importance of being a part of your association?

Employ a Lawyer (EAL) is more than just an initiative, it is a community, and being part of a community is not only important for purposes of learning and networking, but also for purposes of belonging. In our profession, at your education foundation in university, you might find yourself not knowing where you stand and how to go about finding your way into the world of practice or the working environment, EAL thrives to assist law students and unemployed graduate in navigating through that.

How many active members does your association have?

Since EAL is not a registered association, we do not have a record of the number of active members we have. We currently do not require people to register or sign up under our membership, but rather operate on a project-to-project basis. We do, however, account for people who benefit from our works through our social media presence. This can be evidenced in us having 24 200 Instagram followers and 9 655 Twitter followers. In addition, we have 40 active law students in our ‘Mentor a Lawyer’ Mentorship Programme.

Please give us a summary of your association’s constitution/vision and/or mission.

Our vision is to be the most influential legal platform in Africa.

Our mission is to eradicate the unemployment plague in SA and Africa by being the median between students/unemployed graduates and employers, while providing legal education and resources to them.

How do you engage with your members?

Through the various social media platforms – Instagram, Twitter, and Whats–App. We also engage with students and universities in person by honouring invites as guest speakers to go and motivate and encourage students in navigating their journey in the legal profession.

How does your association support young legal practitioners and female legal practitioners in the profession?

We do this by providing legal education and advise in various forms, including but not limited to, posting and sharing vacancies and bursary opportunities; providing mentorship to law students; providing interview preparations and tips; providing informative posts; providing CV and cover letter revamping and tips; creating a platform where we invite legal practitioners in the field (attorneys, advocates, legal advisors, magistrates, paralegals, directors and partners, compliance officers, etcetera) to come and speak to us and shares their experiences in the profession in order to motivate aspiring lawyers.

What are the challenges your members are experiencing in practice?

• Networking – finding the right place, platform, or people to network with in order to build relationships professionally.
• Salaries – it is no secret that candidate attorneys are underpaid. The LPC has initiated a move towards prescribed salaries and that is something we commend, but nonetheless, noncompliance by law firms and legal practitioners will still be an issue just like it is with non-compliance of general employment provisions.
• Healthy work environment – the mistreatment of candidate attorneys is a very problematic issue we hear about every day. Candidate attorneys find themselves quitting their jobs or working under distress due to their principals mistreating them, being overworked, or even being refused paid leave that they are entitled to.
• Misinformation – at early stages in our studies or careers we are either not informed or misinformed about the ways of practice; different career opportunities; requirements of certain jobs; and how things operate. This is due to a lack of workshops, webinars, seminars, and information hubs. People do not have access to these things and end up thinking they do not have enough options or the just uncapable.

What benefits would your members like to receive from the LSSA?

A lot of people are still under the impression that the LSSA and the LPC are one and the same thing and to start off things, the LSSA should help them understand the distinction in showing them what they can do for them.

• Expansion and outreach – many disadvantaged provinces are unaware of what the LSSA can do for them. Having offices in various provinces can help upcoming lawyers recognise and have opportunities made available to them by the LSSA.
• CV portal – the LSSA has more than enough resources and should utilise the De Rebus portal to effectively create more opportunities for them. A lot of students and unemployed graduates struggle with having access to enough job portals that afford them opportunities. The LSSA can fix this by working on the better marketing of the portal and opportunity.
• Free webinars and seminars – there are numerous short courses that LSSA LEAD offers online and in person, most of which are outside the scope or budget of students and unemployed graduates. The LSSA could host free webinars and seminars that not only are for students and unemployed graduates but also those that are specifically curated for them and would help them bridge the gap between university and the work environment.
• More law schools – each year there are thousands of law graduates coming out of university, yet the whole of SA only has 11 Schools for Legal Practice (Law School) including the LSSA UNISA Distance Course under the curatorship of the LSSA/LEAD (excluding private law schools). This shortage is also a contribution to the oversaturation. .

What plans do you have for your members for the future?

In bettering the experiences of students and unemployed graduates, we intend on not only making it easy to access opportunities but also to have them walk the journey in a less challenging way. Our plans are to address the challenges that students and unemployed graduates face but putting measures into place and implement suggestions and ideas. This would occur by organising networking sessions among students, graduates, and professionals; engaging various stakeholders on the issues around candidate attorney mistreatments and salaries; conducting and hosting seminar, workshops, and webinars.

Kathleen Kriel BTech (Journ) is the Production Editor at De Rebus.

This article was first published in SA Lawyer in 2024 (January) DR 10.