I’d like to say I became a journalist through a lifelong obsession with Woodward and Bernstein, a duty to inform and passion for the English language. In truth my career path probably owes more to a computer program named Kudos, which filtered your hobbies and dislikes to find your perfect job.

I was quizzed painstakingly on whether I enjoyed the outdoors, or refuse collecting. As I remember I mostly tried to fool the program into recommending me unsuitable jobs and scaring my tutor into thinking I’d turn out to be a shelf stacker. When I did the test for real, it was a straight choice between the media and the law.

Naturally, my parents and school wanted me to study law - there was talk of gravy trains and retirement by 50, I seem to recall - and ignore the lure of journalism. I wonder if the same advice would have been forthcoming 12 years on?

Certainly, the life of a journalist is no walk in the park (though some have themselves taken to sifting through other people’s refuse). Wages are prohibitively low to anyone from a poor background looking to enter the profession - and if you don’t like it, there are plenty more desperate to take your place.

In my experience, entrants to the law come from a wider background than those in the media. Perhaps that owes something to the minimum salary, which forces firms to pay reasonable wages to their trainees.

Of course, many firms pay much more than the £18,000 (London) and £16,000 (outside London) set by the rules as they grapple for the best talent. But, given the freedom to do so, some may offer much less to new recruits and effectively force out those without parents rich enough to make up the shortfall.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is now considering scrapping its regulatory function of setting the minimum wage. True, there are few other regulators in the professional world that keep up such a practice, but isn’t that what makes the legal profession so special?

We currently have a system that ensures you can afford to work as a trainee no matter what your background. Trainees are immune from exploitation (financially at least) and are given breathing space after inevitably racking up debts through university. If you scrap that security blanket, you risk shutting the door on those who cannot afford to live for two years on meager salaries. And the profession will be much weaker for it.