The reason why four out of 10 lawyers who graduate in Colombia don't get a job

On the occasion of the launch of the Law Program in Bogotá, according to an analysis published by the Ibero-American University Corporation, four out of ten lawyers in Colombia do not get jobs, mainly due to lack of technological and digital skills required by the current market.

Colombia is currently one of the countries with the highest quality in the teaching of law. A report by the Corporation for Excellence in Justice, which analyzed the rates of lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants in countries of America and Europe, reveals that Colombia is the second country in the world with the highest number of lawyers, only after Costa Rica and before Italy. It shows the great professionalism and wide field of work for this profession, but it highlights the importance of adjusting the profession to the needs of a more technological and digital market.

In terms of gender, the distribution between male and female legal professionals in Colombia has been maintained for the past 20 years: 46% of law graduates are men and 54% women.

For its part, in regions, Bogotá concentrated the largest number of law graduates (65,205), representing 31% of the national total. It is followed by Antioquia with 24,722 (12%), Atlántico and Valle del Cauca each account for 8% with 17,489 and 16,737 lawyers graduated respectively, while Bolivar and Norte de Santander represent 3% nationally with 7,256 and 6,981.

After the pandemic, digital processes accelerated mainly in the need for a digital transformation of several industries. For the Law degree today, profiles are valued more for their competencies and we are increasingly seeing career transitions from one industry to another.

The Ibero-American University Corporation, part of the Planeta Formación y Universities Network -PFU- will launch on April 7 the first Law Program aimed at mitigating the lack of these digital skills of lawyers and thereby contributing to more effective employability.

According to the Labour Observatory for Education (OLE), it estimates that 74% of law graduates work in companies and 26% do so independently.

In this way, one of the most important commitments of the Ibero-American University Corporation for new law students in the country is to graduate with LegalTech skills, which allow them to innovate in the exercise of their profession and be in line with the needs of the market and digital transformation.

According to Forbes magazine, during 2018 in the United States, investments worth more than $1 trillion were made in platforms for the provision of legal services, distributed in more than 40 businesses, a figure 731% higher, compared to the 233 million invested in this same market segment in 2017.

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