I've just looked into this, using the points calculator, and discovered how easy it is for say an American or Australian lawyer to move to the UK - no initial job offer is needed (they can just enter the country), and the permit can be transferred to permanent residency after about 4 yrs without the need for an employer or family sponsor.

This means British law graduates will be more and more exposed to overseas competition while at the same time their own geographic mobility to search for jobs overseas is limited because countries like the US, Australia and Canada etc are not offering them work permits on such a liberal basis i.e without a sponsor or job offer.

This means that, for eg. a US lawyer how huge geographic mobility - if there's a big economic recession he or she can choose among 50 states in a country twice the size of Europe plus the UK! He/she can compete with UK lawyers for the same jobs in the UK, but the UK lawyer isn't as free to just up and move to the US.

I believe in free markets and competition, but the playing field has to be level and fair, and here it is not. There are so many law graduates coming out of good unis with sufficient 2.1 law degrees, and employers are bypassing them in favor of US and Australian lawyers.

I dunno, I think British law students and law grads are being shafted big time.

And? Do you have a petition you want signed?

Because if we're just sharing complaints, I think my left arm is about half an inch longer than my right.

It's something entirely beyond my ability to change, but I just feel better telling you about it.

Oh Bender, you're awfully arrogant. The poor guy is just venting. Please relax...

No, no, SpecialK, you misunderstand!

You're being quite "unfaif"!

UnderemployedLawyer and I actually have a lot in common! We both, in the course of simply going about our day, came across something that caused us a degree of concern, and expressed as much to the entire internet.

For UnderemployedLawyer, it was all those nasty foreigners sneaking into the UK under the cover of night and keeping him or her underemployed. How dare they be more experienced and talented than good, decent and UK-educated folk!

For Bender, it was a misguided argument for protectionism, based entirely on a self-serving interest to avoid the prospect of competition with better, more qualified lawyers.

Both of which are horrible things!

So you see, each of us were just venting our feelings in an anonymous forum, in the pursuit of sympathy, catharsis and acceptance, which is clearly the whole point of the internet!

So where's the love, low-fat breakfast cereal?

that wasn't the point of my post - to prevent competition. i'm just saying that it needs to be FAIR competition, and at the moment the field is not level.

in other words, UK lawyers and law grads should be able to access the legal markets of those coming into the UK (US, Canada, Australia, NZ, SA, India etc) just as easily as they access ours - in terms of both legal qualification 'and' immigration rules.