Whilst at Uni reading law, students are often referred to as lawyers by lecturers. You can get an LLB law at the end of your degree but for her to have become a solicitor, she would have had to have done another year studying for the LPC. Once she passed the LPC, she would have had to have then got a Training Contract with a Law Firm. TC’s take 2 years to complete and it is only after that would she become a qualified solicitor. That would have been the usual course for someone to have taken into law around the time she was an undergraduate.
When asked most of the people I know would refer to themselves as a Solicitor or Barrister and not as a lawyer as such.