Radicals in legal education are few and far between.

It seems we have a new one in our midst in the form of the chairman of the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on legal education and conduct, Lord Justice Steyn.

In a letter to the leaders of the profession he says that he 'sees very strong arguments of principle (and perhaps even stronger ones of practicality) in favour of a large measure of common training for barristers and solicitors'.The depressing factor is that the impetus for change should come from the advisory committee and not the profession itself.

What other profession would force its prospective entrants to decide to join a specialist part of it in the final year of an academic degree course in an environment which is, in some cases, hostile to the interests of the profession.If I want to be a consultant gynaecologist, I share my education with intending brain surgeons and general practitioners over a six-year period.

If I want to be a specialist advocate, I must decide in the third year of a general law course which unfortunately has precious little to do with practice.The fundamental question is not what is best for the Law Society or how we can save the Bar, it is what is best for the client.

How do we train young lawyers successfully and get them to understand the seamless thread that runs through the litigation process? How do you get barristers and solicitors to work more effectively in the interests of the client? Answer: train them together.Why has this issue never been raised seriously in the past? I suspect, partly because the two branches of the profession have spent the last six years posturing at each other and partly because there are considerable vested interests in educational institutions owned or controlled by the two branches of the profession that are fearful of change.Let us not forget, however, that the Bar started the move to a more skills- oriented course before the Law Society.

The great mistake it made and for which it is now paying heavily, is that it did not deregulate the delivery of the course.

It retained the monopoly position of the Council of Legal Education and thereby all the problems that it is now experiencing over selection and admissions.When the Law Society came round to reforming its vocational course it did not quite make the same mistake.

It may not have realised it at the time, and of course in many respects the reform was forced upon the Society by the sheer weight of numbers, but the most radical aspect of the legal practice course is deregulation.

It was a brave move through the validation process to devolve admissions, delivery and assessment to the providing law schools.The Law Society, however, did slightly hedge its bets by retaining a controlling majority on the governing body of the College of Law through its Council members.

On balance, however, the latter has probably worked to the detriment of the college rather than the other providers.Deregulation of the LPC has resulted in a course that is quite rightly still heavily influenced by the Society but which contains much variety, innovation and a balanced national intake.

By and large the providers have risen to the challenge and have managed the admissions process professionally and without the need to resort to psychologists, psychometric testing, expensive consultants, crystal ball gazing or any other similarly sophisticated forms of selection.The message for the Bar is that quite apart from the considerable educational and public policy reasons for deregulation, there is a strong pragmatic reason for it.

You also devolve the selection and admission process.

As Denis Healey once said: 'When you are digging yourself into a hole, stop digging otherwise you will get yourself further and further into the hole.' That is a lesson that the CLE could well learn, given its current problems.We can achieve what Lord Justice Steyn is looking for by a process of evolution rather than revolution.

The starting point would be to break the monopoly of the CLE and permit other providers of the course.

Such providers would have to establish that they could resource the course adequately and have a 'commendable' track record of delivering the LPC.Once the course was located in a law school with a variety of postgraduate programmes, experiments could begin.

For example, the trainee solicitors could be allowed to brief the trainee barristers, thus enabling them to work together and learn how to function as a team in the overall interests of the client.

It would not be long before the inevitable de facto common training emerged.The absolute bottom line in the future is that there must be sufficient commonality to allow trainees to progress into practice and leave open their options on specialisation until such time as they are in a position to make a sensible decision.From that foundation we can develop young lawyers in the common areas of litigation and advocacy and other forms of dispute resolution and encourage a spirit of partnership between professionals.In addition, as we found at Nottingham, the vocational course can be used as a foundation stone for further training and professional development.

That must be one area where the Bar would benefit from deregulation since it is just about the last profession that is still training at the expense of its clients.I can only speak for Nottingham Law School but we would welcome the challenge of delivering the Bar course.

The Bar Council should stop talking about it, review the position of its expensive legal education consultants and get on with it.

We could start the course for the September 1995 intake - my natural reticence prevents me from including my telephone number in this article!