A concern of the profession is that each year the number of applicants exceeds the number of contracts available. Graduates unable to obtain a training contract will have accrued sizeable debts with no guarantee of being able to qualify as a lawyer other than by way of the poorly documented, and relatively recent Equivalent Means route. In years past, it was common for aspiring lawyers to pay law firms to train them (a practice also common in other professions in the past, including officer positions in the Royal Navy as well as pilot training in civil aviation).