Matching with Waiting Times: The German Entry-Level Labour Market for Lawyers

Philipp D. Dimakopoulos () and Christian-Philipp Heller ()
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Philipp D. Dimakopoulos: Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department of Economics
Christian-Philipp Heller: Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department of Economics

No 2014005, BDPEMS Working Papers from Berlin School of Economics

Abstract: We study the allocation of German lawyers to different regional courts for their compulsory legal traineeship. The number of applicants exceeds the number of available positions in a given time period in some regions, so that not all lawyers can be matched simultaneously. As a consequence some lawyers have to wait before they obtain a position. First, we analyse the currently used Berlin mechanism and demonstrate that it is unfair and that it does not respect improvements. Second, we introduce a matching with contracts model, using waiting time as the contractual term, for which we suggest an appropriate choice function for the courts that respects the capacity constraints of each court for each period. Despite the failure of the unilateral substitutes condition, under a weak assumption on lawyers’ preferences, a lawyer-optimal stable allocation exists. Using existing results, we can show that the resulting mechanism is strategy-proof, fair and respects improvements. Third, we extend our proposed mechanism to allow for a more flexible allocation of positions over time. Creation Date: 2014-11-01

Keywords: Many-to-One Matching; Matching with Contracts; Stability; Slot-Specific Priorities; Waiting Time; Legal Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D47 D82 H75 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
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