The report notes that in the past decade there has been a 45 per cent surge in law graduates in the UK, but while there were 16,000 graduates in 2014, there were only 5,000 training contracts available. That creates great demand for work experience, but this should only be unpaid for a maximum of four weeks. The guidelines were drawn up following a survey by the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society, which found that while 80 per cent of young lawyers had undertaken work experience almost half did not feel it had enhanced their career prospects. Source: The Law Society Gazette