As academia attacks proposed changes to the training regime for solicitors, Melissa Hardee argues that proper consultation is crucial

The Law Society has been facing quite a dilemma with its forthcoming council meeting later this month - whether or not to approve the recommendations of the training framework review group (TFRG) in the face of mounting opposition by a range of key stakeholders across the board.


It is a skilful call for a regulator to make in deciding how influenced it should be by dissenting opinion. The crux of the matter is that it depends on the reasons for the dissent. In this case, to accede to dissenting opinion and not approve the recommendations that are being put to it could mean losing four years' work of the group.


On the other hand, to approve the recommendations merely because people have put in four years' work - if the recommenda-tions are not right for the public or the profession - seems small beer.


Why do people dissent? Why in this case is there unanimity among the three main academic bodies - the Committee of Heads of University Law Schools, the Association of Law Teachers and the Society of Legal Scholars - bodies such as the City of London Law Society and the Legal Education and Training Group, all but one legal practice course (LPC) provider, as well as individual academics, institutions and practitioners? Is it rampant self-interest? Unlikely. The occasions on which academics, LPC providers and firms agree are few and far between, their self-interests rarely coinciding.


How about resistance to change? Change for change's sake is certainly something that most people resist. Change for good reason is not.


Are the proposed changes for good reason? The answer, and the reason for the strength of feeling, is that the proposals are flawed. They create unacceptably high risks of cost, both to firms and students, of lowering standards, and of undermining the estimable desire to widen access to the profession.


The reason the recommendations are flawed, quite simply, is because the TFRG did not carry out consultation or bring in the pedagogic expertise in time to provide the competence that an exercise such as this requires.


Unfortunately, the group, although containing diverse experience among the committed and dedicated members who comprise it, needed, and still needs, a wider membership that represents the range of stakeholders.


For instance, there is no representation on the group from the three core academic bodies, nor is there any fee-earning practitioner representation. Yet the group is proposing to change the qualifying law degree (which is subject to the joint announcement between the three academic bodies, the Law Society and the Bar Council), and to increase the regulatory burden on firms at the work-based learning stage at unknown cost, financially and otherwise.


However, at this late stage, the Law Society has decided that its council will not be asked to approve the recommendations as high-level principle, but will be asked to approve a consultation paper as the basis for a formal, three-month consultation exercise. Isn't that what everyone has been asking for? There are consultations that genuinely aim to seek opinion so as to inform decision-making processes, which is what stakeholders have been asking for. Then, there are consultations that are intended as nothing more than window-dressing.


Let's hope this is the former and that the council will consider seriously whether the concerns that have been expressed by the range of stakeholders will in fact be allayed by the consultation paper it is being asked to approve. Getting this wrong carries a high risk to the reputation of the Law Society - which, ultimately, must answer to both the profession it represents as well as the public it protects.


Melissa Hardee is a member of the Law Society's training framework review group and LPC director at the Inns of Court School of Law. She co-authored a minority report expressing concern over the group's report