Common training, common sense

Even the suggestion of joint vocational training for the two main branches of the legal profession gets nerves twitching at Bar Council HQ.

There, any merger of the two vocational courses is seen as the start of a slippery slope to a fused profession.

Unsurprisingly, a report this week from Bedford Row on funding entry to the bar makes another brief passing swipe against joint training.

Such a move, it states, would only marginally drive down the costs while creating difficulties in the recruitment market at chambers.

'Star' advocates would be able to delay a decision as to which side of the profession they were going to jump.

At the risk of sounding brutal, so what? Common sense suggests that fused vocational training would make professional sense.

It is arguably not fair on students to ask them to make a major career choice at such an early stage, especially as the profession's practical structure has changed significantly in recent years.

Fused vocational training could mean that all prospective lawyers would have a broader education and the cream of advocacy would still rise to the top.

Trainee barristers might be the main beneficiaries; figures from the qualified lawyers transfer test throughout the nineties showed that nearly 30% of barristers attempting to transfer to the solicitor branch of the profession failed at the first go.

And even small economies in terms of fees must be welcomed by debt-ridden students (see comment, below).

Bar leaders are on stronger ground when they quite rightly promote themselves as finely tuned, independent specialist advocates.

But it should be possible for a student to become that specialist advocate after common training as a lawyer.