One of the more scarey proposals I've heard in quite a while. A lawyer doing a semester of social work would probably benefit them, but a social worker doing a quickie course in the law would benefit no one. The law and social work are two entirely different things, as are a nurse and a Doctor apart from the superficial fact that they both attend to sick people.

The tragic case of Carolyn required the attention of probably several different experts and disciplines, not a one size fits all jack-of-all-trades.

The article is very thought provoking and I am sure there are many more sad stories such as this. However it is not about skills shortages at all. What it is flagging is the need for a convergence between social work and legal skills - an interesting topic. Convergence is occuring in many industries at the moment, for instance electronics, mechanical engineering and ICT skills. As an aside, this is going to create $$$ making opportunities for industrial relations lawyers in the years to come. Skills shortages are very different, and have many causes; they are a real headache to fix. In the not-too-distant future we will be paying more for plumbers than lawyers if we don't fix this problem.
Lyn F