Nail your colours to the mast in Legal Cheek’s first ever election poll
As the UK prepares to vote in what is expected to be the tightest and most unpredictable election in living memory, we want to get a grip on where law students, young lawyers and even aging practitioners stand.
Create your own user feedback survey
We already have an idea how law lectures are going to vote.
A poll released this week in the Times Higher Education Supplement shows business and law academics leaning heavily towards Ed Miliband’s Labour Party.
Some 40% of staff at those faculties said they will put a cross next to the red rose, while David Cameron’s Conservatives are caught in a surprising battle with the Greens for second place, both currently running at about 19%.
Nick Clegg’s Liberal-Democrats are a long way back, polling about 6%, the same level as the Scottish Nationalists, with that latter party obviously not offering up candidates anywhere else in the country.
Nigel Farage doesn’t seem to have caught the imagination of law lectures — fewer than 2% of those polled said they fancied voting for Ukip.
Legal issues have not featured prominently in the campaign, but there is arguably plenty up for grabs in this election.
The last Conservative-Lib-Dem coalition took a scythe to legal aid, with many commentators suggesting law students would be one stop short of an east London Underground station if they are now considering going into that field.
But Labour has shilly-shallied over the issue of whether it would even partially restore legal aid funding and eligibility. Yesterday, party leaders committed a Labour government to looking at increasing legal aid for victims of domestic abuse, but details remained thin on the ground.
The Lib-Dems devoted a significant section of their election manifesto to access to justice, but that party was also vague on tangible proposals.
Indeed, the only national party committed to restoring legal aid funding to pre-coalition levels is the Greens, but polls suggest that despite significant law lecturer support, the party will struggle to hold on to its one parliamentary seat.
Perhaps law students will come to the rescue.
Take the anonymous Legal Cheek general election poll here.