Improving qualifying standards by degrees

The Law Society and Bar Council are running the rule over undergraduates, reports Anne Mizzi

Training for a legal qualification has undergone massive changes in recent years.

But the qualifying law degree has remained relatively untouched.

So much so that in July the Law Society launched a three-pronged consultation on the qualifying law degree as part of its review of the training process - the training framework review.

This consultation focuses on the quality of legal training.

The 'intensive qualitative investigation with key stakeholders' aims to set standards for each stage of education and training; look at minimum compulsory core knowledge and competence; and consider introducing a post-qualification training structure and qualifications.

The review is scheduled to publish its interim report in October.

It was launched to address the widespread concern that the pre-admission training process is 'insufficiently rigorous and produces a lower standard of legal knowledge and analysis than was previously the case'.

Therefore, the first area for attack was the qualifying law degree (QLD).

In July, the Society and Bar Council launched three consultation papers aimed at three stakeholder groups.

The first canvasses the opinion of the heads of universities offering the course, who hold the purse strings.

The second is aimed at the heads of the law departments themselves.

And the third has been sent to legal practice course (LPC) and bar vocation course providers.

The undergraduate and postgraduate course providers are being canvassed as consumers.

This emphasis on legal institutions is because co-operation is essential unless the professional bodies decide to impose and enforce standards themselves.

In the past, QLDs were supposed to be subject to external periodic review by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, a government body.

But because of changes to the organisation, these reviews will no longer take place.

Therefore, the Society and Bar Council are considering various options for reviewing the degree course amid fears in the consultation that the some law degrees are perceived as being of 'an inadequate standard to equip students to progress onto a professional career in law'.

Indeed, the latest annual statistical report from the Society shows that the law degree is decreasing in importance as a way into the solicitors' profession; where a decade ago 65% of newly qualified solicitors had law degrees, the figure dropped to 58% by last year.

One of the options would be for the Society and Bar Council to review the courses themselves.

But this would be expensive and may face opposition from the course providers.

College of Law chief executive Nigel Savage argues: 'By and large, there has been no quality assurance from the Law Society and Bar Council.

It's going to be difficult for them to start interfering.

There will never be a consensus because the last thing [universities] want is to have the Law Society and Bar Council crawling all over them.'

Therefore, the preferred option is to work with the universities offering the degree, which would conduct their own reviews at least every six years.

The proposed voluntary and self-financing scheme would require the university to invite the Society or Bar Council to nominate someone to participate in the review, possibly from a register of approved people.

Universities would also be allowed to name an external member from the list as part of the review team.

Although the team's report would be published, it would only be made available to the professional bodies.

Mr Savage says that if the review system were set up in this way it would simply perpetuate the present system because of the likelihood of cronyism.

Another suggestion is to introduce an LPC-style grading system as an incentive.

But these proposals may not go far enough to address the widespread concern among lawyers that students do not know enough basic law when they graduate with a QLD.

The consultation paper says: 'In addition to quality and standards, there are concerns relating to content and, in particular, to deficiencies of legal knowledge, of understanding of basic legal principles within relevant commercial/business/social contexts, inadequate research skills, poor cases analysis and fact management skills and poor literacy skills.'

Top City law firms have taken matters into their hands.

Last year, eight leading practices launched an LPC consortium to remedy these deficiencies at the post-QLD stage.

One of the main changes on the course is a re-introduction of more black-letter law.

At the moment, the QLD must cover the following 'foundation' subjects: public law, including constitutional law; administrative law and human rights; law of the European Union; criminal law; obligations including contract, restitution and tort; property law; equity and the law of trusts; and legal research training.

Stephen Wilkinson, graduate recruitment partner at Herbert Smith, which is part of the consortium, says: 'The number of courses has expanded.

Students require universities to offer the full range of courses and there is a real pressure to offer a range of courses if it isn't Oxbridge.

But that doesn't necessarily translate to a very useful law degree as it may dilute the course.'

But he says that despite this, the three-year course is still, on balance, preferable to the one-year law conversion course (CPE), from which the QLD exempts students.

However, the statistical report shows that the percentage of newly qualified solicitors with non-law degrees has jumped from 10% in 1991 to 21% in 2001.

'Of course, everything depends on the quality of the individual,' Mr Wilkinson says.

If all other things are equal then my preference is for the law candidates because the ability to study over three years is better than one year.

But the differences [between trainees who have taken a law degree and CPE] tend to equal out over time.'

CPE courses are excluded from the consultation, as they are already subject to periodic review that would be too expensive for the professional bodies and law schools to implement for the QLDs.

City firms' main hunting ground for the recruitment of future lawyers remains at Oxbridge and the red-brick universities.

But the Society and Bar Council want to ensure that students are not being prejudiced because they do not have a QLD from the 'right' university.

The consultation paper says: 'We cannot condone a situation where some students may be arbitrarily excluded from opportunities to progress within the legal profession solely on the grounds of the institution they attend.'

Improving standards should go some way to addressing these worries.

Peter Jones, dean and chief executive of Nottingham Law School, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses, also calls for more information about the courses to be made available.

'What I think has been the case in the past has been that what a particular university degree does has been relatively obscure.

We need far more transparency.

'The debate about the law course being a liberal arts degree or more commercially oriented is a bit stale.

Students are mature enough to make a decision and there should be enough information for them to do so.'

Mr Jones and Mr Savage suggest that the argument that 50% of law students do not go on to become lawyers should be inverted.

'Half don't become practising lawyers, but I'm bothered about the half who do,' says Mr Savage.

His view is that now degree students have to pay fees, universities' law departments are under increasing pressure to improve their courses.

'At the end of the day we are now in a market place,' he points out.

According to Mr Jones, there is a gap in the market for a university to offer a course aimed specifically at students who intend to become solicitors.

'To some extent we have done it because we have a sandwich degree with one year in practice.'

However, whatever happens in the market the Society must act soon, as there is effectively no quality assurance system in place for QLDs.

The Society's education and training head Julie Swan says: 'From the Law Society's perspective, the important issue is to identify with the academic providers how we can become more involved in the quality assurance process, so that we can ensure that prospective students and employers have available accurate and useful information about the quality and standards of law degree provision.

'Law remains a very popular subject for study in higher education and there is a rich variety of programme available.

It is important that there is confidence in all law degree provision.'

She emphasises that the scrutiny of the QLD is part of the training framework review and that the whole review is at a preliminary stage.

'There has been some interest among commentators about the future of the training contract.

However, no decisions have been taken about the future of the training scheme, or the role of the training contract within it,' says Ms Swan.

She adds: 'The review is being undertaken to ensure that the training requirements develop in newly admitted solicitors the abilities, attributes and values expected of a solicitor by clients, society and other professionals.

It is important that the training scheme is reviewed within the context of changes within higher education and professional education generally.'

The universities and course providers will report in October and no doubt law firms and students will be keen to express their views on the proposals.

Mr Jones says: 'Clearly, the professions have a legitimate interest and it's a question of how we strike the balance between the competing interests.

There is always going to be tension.'

However, if Mr Savage is right it will be the market that decides.

Anne Mizzi is a freelance journalist