As one who regularly interviews prospective trainees, I am well aware of my own deficiencies.

But the reality is that a bad experience at any interview can be very upsetting for the trainee.

At worst it can seriously blight career confidence.

It also shows your firm in a very poor light and could damage the image of the profession as a whole.

Bad news, especially unpleasant experiences, travels fast and wide - often embellished with the re-telling!Our sketch of how not to conduct an interview will, we hope, be an entertaining lesson.

The next generation's enthusiasm and enjoyment should be captured and enhanced by equally enthusiastic and encouraging interviewing techniques.

Less than half of all the firms in the country take trainees; nearly half of the places are in central London and a good many more are with the large regional practices.

These firms invest heavily in trainees, but how sophisticated are their methods when it comes to analysing of selecting over 2000 applicants for interview and what are the best interviewing techniques which can be adopted?I hope the discussion follows the sketch and the session generally will produce a variety of views and provide for an exchange of ideas and information.Stephen Hammett.Entry to the profession produces issues of widespread concern and controversy - the shortage of training places for those who have completed finals or the legal practice course (LPC); discrimination against ethnic minorities; maintenance of the minimum salary.

But pure training issues do not often make the headlines.The role of the new and comprehensive training scheme in equipping solicitors to thrive in difficult times is little recognised.

The old notion of training as an obstacle course to be negotiated on the way to qualification dies hard.

The message that training is an essential and career-long element of successful practice needs to be brought home to students and practitioners alike.We now have a legal practice course which teaches lawyering skills as well as law.

The quaintness of articles, which in my case required me diligently and faithfully to serve my principal and not to make away with the postage stamps, has been replaced by a training contract which identifies the real requirements of training by reference to standards.Within the training contract trainees will spend 20 days on the professional skills course, building on the LPC in the light of practical experience, and picking up accounts and work management.Newly admitted solicitors have had to undertake continuing education since 1987.

As from 1 November this year, that requirement applies to you, if you were admitted after 1982; from 1998 it will apply to all of us.Some say that all this is a Rolls Royce system, designed in the flush 1980s but unaffordable in the lean 1990s.

Others, small firms as well as large, see training for all their staff as something they cannot afford not to do, in order to retain a competitive edgeMaintenance of a stimulating training programme, using external or internal providers, is a feature which distinguishes firms determined to help themselves from those who complain that a guaranteed living has failed to materialise.It is an essential part of the practice management standards and other quality systems.Paul Pharaoh.The increased expenditure in training is undeniable, the cost of the LPC is roughly double that of the old LSF course, the PSC will cost solicitors' firms approximately £1000 per trainee, not to mention the increasing requirements of CPD.

These three-letter pneumonics do not come cheaply.Undoubtedly there are those within the profession who think that these costs are unjustifiable.

They are seen as a result of increasing and self-perpetuating bureaucracy within the Law Society and the outright greed of educational institutions making the most of a market where demand exceeds supply.But everyone recognises that training is an investment and it should come as no great shock that better training costs money.

The real question is: 'Does the return justify the expense?'To some extent it is still too early to answer this question.

Investment in training requires an act of faith, but if one applies common sense one can appreciate the benefits that will accrue from quality training at all levels.As a graduate of the LSF now teaching the LPC and the exempting degree I feel well-qualified to comment on the improvements that have been made in the area.

LPC trainees will have reached a competent level in skills such as interviewing and advocacy and will be able to make useful contributions to fee-earning work at an early stage.Training from the PSC will further increase confidence, morale and motivation.

Continuing training in the form of CPD will become an integral part of a solicitor's career which will maximise his or her potential and may mean fewer negligence claims.

A better quality and more profitable service will result and this is the long-term gain.Fiona Boyle.