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Scientific survey of the week

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25 May 2012 10:20

The legal press is abuzz with the latest whizzy new survey compiled by Laurence Simons. The survey has examined the schools that lawyers attended, found that loads went to public schools and screamed the following conclusion: "LEGAL PROFESSION'S ELITISM GAP WIDES".

The headline figure is that 15% of lawyers attended the UK's 250 public schools, compared to just 2% of the general population. This - according to the recruiters that last year told the world university was an expensive waste of time - reveals that social mobility is FAILING and law is becoming ever more elitist. Which apparently can be mostly blamed on the "growing focus on degrees" and the decline of grammar schools.

Stark stuff. But as with any survey, desperate for a spot in the headlines (which Laurence Simons has certainly achieved with this one), is there possibly an element of sensationalism here? Let's have a gander at the methodology.

    Some scientific research yesterday

Laurence Simons says it reached its conclusions by combing through the LinkedIn profiles of 49,600 "professionals" working in London. Yes, that's LinkedIn. You know, that site you signed up to four years ago and haven't really checked again since? I'd wager you probably don't even remember your password. A spokesman for Wriglesworth Consultancy (which is pimping out the survey) said that the data was extracted by searching the networking site for the names of public schools and then trawling through the corresponding profiles for lawyers.

The survey identifies 7,200 "professionals" (I'll assume this means lawyers, although it's not specified) who attended public school, which equates to 14.5% of the 49,600 . Which, says Laurence Simons, means that a public school alumnus is "seven times more likely to become legal professional" than someone educated at a state school.

This had RollOnFriday mathematicians scratching their heads. First of all, there are currently 128,240 lawyers practising in England and Wales. Only 49,600 lawyers' profiles have been checked,  just 39% of the legal population. Secondly, in the spirit of Laurence Simons' spurious scientific research, I conducted a quick check of my LinkedIn contacts, many from back in my days as a City lawyer, and not one of them, NOT ONE, has entered details of their school. Mostly as we've passed the stage of asking each other what we got in our A-Levels.

This is certainly not to deny that there is a problem with social mobility in the legal profession. Of course there is. As is the case for so many professions. Lawyers probably take their responsibilities in this sphere more seriously than many, simply because the legal profession is open to so much scrutiny, so many accusations of fat cattery. Still, there is obviously much more to be done.

But social mobility is a serious issue and it perhaps deserves a little more care, attention and analysis than simply checking out a few LinkedIn profiles and cobbling together some hasty conclusions.

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anonymous user
23/05/2012 13:54
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It's very true the methodology is suspect.

LinkedIn is not exactly a great source for checking factual data. Also they haven't thought about the intermediary stages. Public school children are far more likely to get into university. If they are far more likely to get into university, they are proportionately far more likely to graduate and therefore be picked as trainee solicitors or barristers. The bias is not necessarily just the law profession, it is also a university bias as well, which cannot be blamed on the law profession.

A public school child is more likely to have better teaching, better access to resources, better parental guidance, better holiday tutoring and therefore better grades. There is a better chance of getting into a better university and therefore entering the legal profession.

A far more valid methodology is if the researchers compared how many trainees of public school background made it to partnership. If public school educated trainees form a disproportionate amount of partners then you have a case of bias in the profession. So if the intake is 15% of public school educated trainees and yet public school educated people form 60% of all partners then you have a case of bias. This methodology requires time though. It would need tracking over a number of years, so the law firm's HR people could track the same trainees and see how many of them made it to partnership.

In reality, there will always be some bias as people tend to recruit in their own image.
anonymous user
23/05/2012 17:30
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Not really unexpected. Shoddy research from a shoddy agency.

Very much inline with the salary survey they sent to me which I imagine was taken off the back of a cereal box
anonymous user
24/05/2012 20:22
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Err... Yes obviously the study's methodology is retarded. However, ROF's criticism of the methodology is absurd:

The major criticism is that only 39% of the legal population have been surveyed (a sample of 49,600). This is a huge sample, and should, all other elements of the methodology being correct, given an extremely precise measure of the whole population. It is rather obvious that the person who wrote the article has had an exclusively arts/humanities background when they suggest the survey is a suspect because it "ignores" 61% of a population. If this was a methodological flaw, almost every scientific experiment and epidemiological study would be invalid.

A valid criticism would be that the sample is not properly selected - it doesn't really look like ROF has considered this point. A second valid criticism might be to simply say that one doesn't believe that they actually conducted the study that they said they did - this is something that ROF alludes to in suggesting that LinkedIn profiles may often not contain details of schooling.

seriously though...
anonymous user
25/05/2012 10:14
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The biggest source of bias in this survey is the fact that someone who went to Eton is more likely to blab on about it on LinkedIn than someone who went to Gasworks Street Comp, who leaves the section blank and therefore excludes themselves from the survey.
Frank @ RoF
25/05/2012 10:17
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The main reason the whole thing is flawed is because only a complete douche would bother to name their school in their LinkedIn profile. Who - other than an idiotic ex-public school boy (i.e. me) - would bother?
Laura @ RoF
25/05/2012 10:19
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Yes you're right, all surveys are limited. The point I wanted to make was that I'm not sure how much can be concluded from social networking profiles that so rarely include detail about people's schools.