Legal Education and Training Review
A. Context
The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) was said to be the only dedicated, system-wide examination of legal education and training undertaken since Lord Justice Ormrod in 1971 This ignored the review by ACLEC, but LETR was different because it was overseen by the BSB, SRA and ILEX Professional Standards.
It is envisaged as three stages; a research stage, a review stage to consider any consequent changes to the regulators’ education and training requirements and a consultation stage.181 ibid, Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations, rec 6.
182 ibid, at 73.
183 ibid, rec 16(1).
184 ibid, rec 22.
Although the review was undertaken by professional bodies, the research stage for the LETR Report was produced by Law academics from different institutions led by Julian Webb who, at the time the review commenced, was Director of the UK Centre for Legal Education based at Warwick University. The report for the review stated that the exercise was precipitated by the liberalisation of legal services, the arrival of innovative delivery models, developments in technology, globalisation and consumerism.[1006]
The report noted that, simultaneously, there were growing student numbers, escalating costs of qualification and difficulties in finding employment after qualification, resulting in calls for reform of the current system of legal education and training. There were cuts in the availability of civil legal aid and tightening criminal legal aid budgets. None of these factors were new. In fact, the review was promoted by the Legal Services Board, ostensibly to obtain an overview of how education and training fitted with ‘market needs’.
The LSB may have foreseen a number of results of the LETR. These possibly included, for example, combined education training routes and increased accreditation to undertake reserved activities.
Only one outcome was actually signalled by the BSB. Announcing the review, the LSB chairman said ‘(a)s a minimum, we will be looking at a changed and earlier emphasis on the teaching of professional ethics and wider responsibilities to the client’. The reference to an ‘earlier emphasis’ could only refer to degree level teaching. The LSB had signaled a need for an analysis based on the regulatory needs of the legal services market.B. The LETR Report
i. Recommendations
The LETR did not recommend a move to activity-based authorisation, which would focus on regulation of specific reserved activities or other legal tasks. Rather, it suggested that the current entity-focused system was probably preferable.[1007] The reason offered for this conclusion was the complexity of the present system of multiple regulators. The report did, however, support a limited step in the direction of activitybased regulation. It suggested removing advocacy and wills from the LPC and requiring specialist training to undertake these activities.
There were no major changes recommended in the current structure of legal education and training. Relatively minor amendments were proposed to the content. The report suggested the assessment of legal research, writing and critical thinking skills in the law degree and graduate diploma in law. The LETR’s more radical suggestions were on access to the profession and for the para-legal sector. For example, it suggested restoring the apprenticeship route to qualification as a solicitor. It suggested tighter regulation of internships and work experience in order to combat discrimination and social disadvantage. It also suggested that para-legal law firms be allowed to operate where fully qualified practitioners were not necessary.
The LETR made a number of recommendations that had been made before and rejected others. For example, it followed the TFRG line that vocational training should be based on achieving the ‘day one’ outcomes rather than on the time served.
Like ACLEC, it favoured a stronger focus on professional ethics throughout education and training. Also like ACLEC, it suggested creating a ‘Legal Education Council’ to oversee, co-ordinate and support innovation in legal education and training. Previous ideas the LETR did not favour included common training for solicitors and barristers and periodic re-accreditation of practitioners.ii. Recommendations on Ethics
The LETR Report suggested the development of outcomes for legal ethics at all stages of legal education. A major surprise was that there were no major recommendations for teaching legal ethics. The report recommended that ‘all approved regulators review the treatment of ethics and professionalism within their education and training regimes to ensure that the subject is addressed with the prominence and in the depth appropriate to the public profession of law’.[1008] This is more remarkable since the report suggested that the ‘perceived centrality of professionalism and ethics to practice across the regulated workforce is one of the clearest conclusions to be drawn from the LETR research’.[1009]
In research conducted for the LETR Report, legal ethics was apparently rated ‘important’ or ‘somewhat important’ by over 90 per cent of respondents. It was also ‘seen as a defining feature of professional service in the qualitative data’.[1010] The report went on to say that the ‘majority of respondents thought that an understanding of legal values, ethics and professionalism needs to be developed throughout legal services education and training’.[1011] The first finding mentioned the need to ‘strengthen requirements for education and training in legal ethics, values and professionalism’,[1012] but the proposals for achieving this were vague.
The report encouraged regulators to develop a broad approach to the subject, rather than a limited focus on conduct rules or principles.
Recommendation 7 is that:The learning outcomes at initial stages of LSET should include reference (as appropriate) to the individual practitioner’s role, to an understanding of the relationship between morality and law, the values underpinning the legal system, and the role of lawyers in relation to those values.[1013]
It was not clear how this was to be achieved without relevant content being added to, or some other adjustment of, the Seven Foundations of Legal Knowledge. The LETR Report recommended that Legal Services Education and Training schemes should include ‘appropriate learning outcomes’ in respect of professional ethics.193 This, unfortunately, threatens to repeat the mistake made when professional conduct was introduced as a ‘pervasive’ subject at the vocational stage.
The LETR Report noted that general support for a greater emphasis on ethics training ‘did not amount to extensive support for ethics to become a separate Foundation subject’.194 This was all the more puzzling because the LETR Report did not recommend abolition or adjustment of the Seven Foundations of Legal Knowledge. It added that this would not ‘ prevent a basis for the study of professional ethics being provided at the academic stage’ noting that there is ‘general support for all authorised persons receiving some education in legal values, as well as the technical ‘law on lawyering’.195
The LETR Report implied that ethics training should continue post-qualification. It suggested that that there is ‘a public interest (and a competitive interest) for regulated lawyers in demonstrating and maintaining the integrity and high ethical standards of legal services provision’.196 It noted that the Professional Skills Course for trainee solicitors and the Bar New Practitioners Programme include ethics and that ILEX Professional Standards mandates coverage of ethics in the new CPD scheme for CILEx members. The SRA was said to be considering post-qualification requirements.
iii. Evaluation
The LETR Report had mixed reactions. It skated over many important areas and did not give a clear steer to the regulators. Whereas the brief for the research suggested an analysis of need, the report reflected the views of stakeholders. The consensus of respondents tended, as might be expected, to favour the status quo. The LETR Report, like many of its predecessors, was therefore relatively conservative. While those hoping for a radical shake-up were disappointed, many were relieved that there was plenty of space left to continue the discussion about the future of legal education. Perhaps most significantly, the regulators who had commissioned the report were given freedom to do more or less what they wanted.
VIII.