Thumbs up for City legal practice course

The Law Society-controlled legal practice course (LPC) board has approved changes to the LPC after calls to tailor it to City needs.

Modifications to the programmes run by Nottingham Law School, the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice and BPP Law School have all been given the green light.

Before the decision was made, the board sought advice from counsel to safeguard against discrimination and looked at information from the eight City firms -- Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Freshfields, Allen & Overy, Slaughter and May, Lovells, Herbert Smith, Norton Rose and involved about how they select and recruit trainees.

The board said the information satisfied it that no further investigations needed to be made to validate the course.

The revised course will start in September this year.

In validating the course, the board has imposed three conditions: providers can only reserve up to two-thirds of their intake for the trainees of the eight firms; validation is subject to monitoring to ensure there is no possibility of discrimination; and assessment levels at all three providers must remain consistent with other LPC programmes

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'I am delighted that the three colleges have been able to agree a format that gives City firms what they need while complying with the requirements for the course.

'It is vital that the LPC as a whole retains its integrity across the whole profession.

But it is equally vital that the context in which any LPC course operates reflects the diversity of solicitors' practices.'

Last year, the now Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, slated the move for being elitist.

The law firms selected three course providers to work with in 1999, saying they were dissatisfied with the standard of training they are paying for.

Neil Rose