COMMENT | Recent calls for a minimum wage for pupils in the legal profession have been met with plenty of objections. These range from appeals to laissez-faire free-market principles (rote), to distinguishing allowances from wages (pedantic), to dismissing pupils as non-employees (legally accurate; morally dubious), to casting aspersions on pupils’ utility and intelligence (irrelevant).

Common to these is a traditionalist streak married to a finger-wagging quality, a ‘let-the-adults-handle-this’ tone. You can almost hear their furrowed brows. This is not how we did it in the good old days, they sigh. If RM500 a month was good for the goose of yesteryear, it’s good for the gander of today.

Pupils, who undergo compulsory nine-month training before admission to the profession, have little power and require backup. Many junior and senior lawyers have, thankfully, come out in favour. Some outside voices have chimed in. The Bar is even reportedly working on some sort of pay scheme for pupils.

But many lawyers remain unmoved. Perhaps the Bar of England and Wales, which has mandated a minimum pay for its pupils since 2003, will prove more persuasive.

To this end, I turned to ...