A legal thinktank has today called for the abolition of the training contract as part of proposed radical changes to legal education and training.

A 53-page discussion paper from the College of Law’s Legal Services Institute (LSI) urges scrapping training contracts and making the Legal Practice Course the new gateway to the profession. Law degrees should become more relevant to the vocational stages of legal training, the paper says, and the Legal Services Board should ensure the highest standards by requiring all legal regulators to set common standards of competence.

The paper adds that only a minority of law graduates now enter the practising professions, and calls for a new type of degree specifically tailored for those intending to practise. It also proposes that reserved legal activities, such as probate, litigation or commercial conveyancing, should become subject to separate authorisation after qualification. These changes would better reflect the realities of practice, raise standards and help widen access to the profession by removing the ‘bottleneck’ of training contracts, the paper suggests.

The call for change follows the announcement of a joint review of legal services education and training by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board and the Institute of Legal Executives Professional Standards.

LSI director Professor Stephen Mayson said: ‘It is two decades since the LPC replaced the Solicitors’ Final Examination and much has changed in that time, in both the market for legal services and in the regulatory framework. If the expanded and diverse provision of legal services, envisaged by the Legal Services Act 2007, is to be effective in providing clients with high quality and affordable services, the need for change that we identify must be acted on.’

College of Law chief executive Nigel Savage said: ‘We welcome the review by the three regulators – no part of legal education should be left out. We cannot insulate the English education and training market from the global market.’

The LSI is a policy thinktank funded by the College of Law as part of its charitable foundation.