"Becoming a lawyer": understanding the experience of legal career aspirations amongst final year law undergraduates

Smith, Sonya

"Becoming a lawyer": understanding the experience of legal career aspirations amongst final year law undergraduates

Publication Date

July 31, 2026

Creator

Smith, Sonya

Abstract

Endemic barriers to the legal profession persist which effectively exclude those from low socio-economic backgrounds, perpetuating the profession’s elitism on classed lines, amongst other inequalities. Issues of fair access to the legal profession are pertinent to English contemporary higher education because law is a graduate profession and many undergraduates embark upon a law degree because they aspire to become a lawyer. However, it has been observed that by the final year of the law degree although some have maintained their legal career aspirations, many law undergraduates have apparently opted out of their original plans to become a lawyer. Amongst undergraduates from low socio-economic backgrounds this observed attrition raises challenges for legal education’s role in widening access to the legal profession and higher education’s ability to deliver social mobility outcomes. Given the potential implications of this observed attrition, the research focused upon the experiences of law undergraduates from low socio-economic backgrounds who began their studies wanting to become a lawyer within a Law School, in a post-92, English university. The research explored these undergraduates’ perceptions of the experiences that had influenced their career decision-making, to understand why some maintained yet others opted out of their original plans to become a lawyer. Qualitative data was generated via semi-structured interviews with sixteen law undergraduates who self-identified as coming from low socio-economic backgrounds and three focus groups of Law School academics. The findings suggest that these undergraduates encountered class-based inequalities as they navigated their academic and professional journeys through higher education. Although their experiences suggest that habitus relevant to becoming a lawyer developed during the degree, it did so individually and unevenly. This uneven habitus development seemingly informed their perceptions of their employability, using the concepts of professional identity and possible selves, in relation to the occupational future as a lawyer that they could envisage, and ultimately their career decision-making. Some of these undergraduates sustained their original legal career aspirations whereas some opted out of them, selecting an alternative graduate career, potentially explaining the observed attrition. The research suggests that due to the classed nature of their undergraduate experience, to sustain their original legal career aspirations and to prepare to enter the legal labour market, these undergraduates must do more during the degree, despite limited, if any, access to relevant capitals, potentially perpetuating existing privilege. By combining the concepts of possible selves and of equity-based education a conceptual model has been developed from the research’s findings, to support law undergraduates from low socio-economic backgrounds in developing their legal employability as they negotiate their academic and professional journeys through higher education, by fostering relevant habitus development to elaborate lawyer possible selves.

Item Type

ethesis

Thesis Type

EdD

Supervisors

Thondhlana, Juliet