Consultation: practices could be allowed to run tailored elective subjects for trainees


Plans to decouple elective subjects from the legal practice course (LPC) - allowing firms to run and tailor them for their trainees - are to be put forward by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).



The SRA board last week approved a consultation paper on overhauling the LPC, which will also propose allowing students for the first time to apply for exemptions from parts of the course.



LPC students currently study 14 compulsory subjects, and a further three electives. Under the plans, the electives would remain a necessary element of completing the vocational stage of training, but no longer form part of the LPC.



They could be studied immediately after the LPC as now - 'this may continue to be the preferred route for many,' the paper recognises - before, during or after the 'related work-based learning experience, either one by one or in a block of three', or at the end of the period of work-based learning.



The moves mesh with existing SRA proposals to replace the training contract with a more flexible period of work-based learning.



The benefits were said to include allowing students to spread their study, and particularly the cost of it, and enabling firms to deliver tailored electives to trainees. Despite concerns that it could also produce confusion and less prepared trainees at the point they join firms, the board has decided that the benefits outweigh the potential risks.



There is still work to be done on what qualifications would provide exemptions from parts of the LPC, although likely areas are business and property law, and litigation and advocacy. The SRA envisages that this will provide flexibility to students, especially those following a non-traditional route to qualification, and may be cheaper if providers charge fees according to the subjects studied.



However, it recognised a concern that this could lead to the LPC becoming 'modularised', meaning 'its perceived coherence and pervasive nature will be lost'.



Neil Rose