Accustomed as I am to receiving gloomy news about legal aid and vulnerable people being denied access to justice, a press release heralding a rare piece of good news brightened my inbox this week.The email, sent on behalf of BPP Law School, US firm Reed Smith, Barclays Bank and the Black Lawyers Directory, announced that two London students had won the chance of a free place to study law at BPP.

David John from Camden School and Nazifa Maher Chowdhury from Mulberry School for Girls in Tower Hamlets won the ‘Your break in the law’ competition – a pioneering project to promote social mobility and diversity in the legal sector.

The programme was devised to give talented A-level students from non-traditional and black and minority ethnic backgrounds a route in to the profession. The pair will also receive work experience and mentoring from Reed Smith and Barclays’ in-house legal team.

This is welcome and a well-earned opportunity for the two students concerned – but it got me thinking.

It’s all well and good for global law firms and FTSE 100 companies to invest in the lawyers of the future, to ensure their sector of the profession is open to the brightest and best from socially diverse backgrounds. These efforts are laudable.

But how can the legal aid sector compete? Low fee rates and uncertainty over how the government will seek to procure publicly funded legal services in future mean many firms are struggling to remain financially viable. Unsurprisingly, the number of training contracts offered by legal aid firms has fallen dramatically. And to add insult to injury, earlier this year the Ministry of Justice axed the scheme that gave grants to legal aid firms to help fund tuition and training contracts.

We could therefore end up with a perverse outcome. The wealthiest clients and global companies will in future be advised by lawyers who come from all walks of life, while the poorest people who cannot afford to pay for legal advice will be served only by lawyers from privileged backgrounds and who are not representative of society as a whole. I cannot believe that is what social mobility tsar Alan Milburn wants to see.

It is right that the government should be urging law firms to do their utmost to reach out to their communities and offer financial assistance to aspiring lawyers. Many firms will do so. But economic reality means that many others just won’t be able to afford it.