According to Chris Roper, fears that the legal profession risks being overwhelmed by this number of law students are probably unfounded. Even this number of students only represents 62 per cent of the number of lawyers in Australia with practising certificates. The proportion is a modest increase on the numbers in 1996 and 1997. In those years undergraduate students represented 57 and 58 per cent respectively of the number of lawyers with practising certificates. The Centre for Legal Education's national law graduates' career destinations study reveals that only about one half of recent law graduates are working in the private legal profession.
Many graduates are in other types of legal work, such as in government.
Whether this is by choice or circumstance is not clear. Despite the large number of undergraduate law students, the private legal profession is unlikely to be swamped by an increased intake. Women again outnumbered men in the law schools. In every university, except three, they outnumbered male law students. Looking back over four years, the gap between the number of women and men law students is increasing.