WORK-BASED LEARNING: minimum period to qualify under SRA 'could become the norm'


Trainee solicitors qualifying after just 16 months of 'work-based learning' could become the norm, and not just a minimum for certain candidates, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been warned.



The SRA's consultation on a new framework for work-based learning asked for views on proposals to the end of the formal 24-month training contract, substituting in its place a scheme based around four assessments, each at least four months apart, that could see trainees qualifying in just 16 months. However, it envisages the process taking at least two years for most trainees.



It also proposes that individuals should be able to qualify without entering into a formal training contract or working for an organisation that is accredited to give training. Instead, they would have an external supervisor.



Pauline Holland, chairwoman of the Legal Education and Training Group, said 29 firms from the City and elsewhere had contributed to the group's response. She said: 'There was an underlying sense that any improvement in assessment and testing was a good thing. It had to be better than the tendency to rubber-stamp sign-offs and leave others to worry about it later.'



She added it was concerned that the recommended minimum training period of 16 months could become the norm. 'The shorter period would only be suited for candidates who had qualified in other jurisdictions or were mature students with previous experience.'



Debrah Ball, chairwoman of the Law Society's education and training committee, said it supported the move to work-based learning 'but only in a lawyer-run organisation where individuals were supervised by a solicitor'.



Ms Ball added that a number of ethical and other professional issues had to be addressed by the SRA very soon 'so that assessors will have clear and assessable definitions of what constitutes, for instance, business-like dealing with clients, integrity and client confidentiality'.



David Coleman, a partner at Macfarlanes and member of the City of London Law Society's training committee, said the committee supported the non-accredited route, but said 'more work still needed to be done to make the assessment process robust and free of client-confidentiality issues'.



But he said the cost of following this route 'could yet create a barrier to entry'.



Jonathan Rayner