Do you consider that the current system of legal education and training can

provide the lawyers that this country needs?

Written by James Faulkner (AS student)

At the outset of my essay I intend to enunciate what is intrinsic within

the professions of the solicitor and barrister, before then progressing to

elucidate how these two professions are interlinked and align together to

procure fees. I shall then expound upon the legal training courses which

dictate the route of the prospective solicitor or barrister. My ensuing

words will concern how the type of training lawyers receive, can be, is, or

is not conducive to providing the lawyers that this country needs. To do

this I shall evaluate expert opinion and accounts from law sources and

In my opinion any lawyer that can be considered of need to this country

must be adept in the application of legal knowledge, efficient at all times,

and be striving for maximum cost effectiveness. In parellel with this they

must demostrate the ability to serve all members of society; incorporating a

'pro bono¼ ethic where it is due. In my essay I intend to assess whether the

system provides the aforementioned qualities and base my conclusion to an

There are more than 80,000 solicitors in the UK today, established and

regulated since the 17th century; they make up the largest of the two

branches within the UK legal profession. Solicitors are governed by the Law

As general practitioners of the law, Solicitors can advise the public

directly on both Civil and Criminal concerns. Although most Solicitors firms

Barristers-at-Law are governed by the Bar Council and the four Inns of

Court - Gray¼s Inn, Inner Temple, Lincoln¼s Inn and Middle Temple;

barristers are the advocates of the UK legal profession, and hold rights of

audience before all UK courts. Until 1990 barristers held the monopoly of

appearing in the higher courts, but this precedent did not withstand the

enactment of the Courts and Legal Services Act of said year.

At present some 14,000 barristers practise in the UK, and there is an

increasing tendency for them to specialise, yet some still provide many

varied litigation services known as 'common law practices¼.

There are a myriad of solicitors in practice, be they partners of

provincial or city firms, specialist, or employed solicitors. Unlike

barristers, solicitors are organised in 'firms¼ working in offices, even if

they are sole practitioners. I think such a description was intended to

depict the major point of distinction between the two branches of the

profession: that is, solicitors can advertise services whilst barristers may

Moreover, solicitors can 'instruct¼ barristers i.e. the public cannot

directly go to a barrister for services, whereas they can a solicitor (the

complexities of this issue will be covered further at a later stage).

Where education is concerned both members of the two branches must hold an

academic qualification in law, in addition they must have also passed

professional examinations and undertake continuing post-qualification professional

To become a solicitor, it is usual to have a law degree, although those

without one can take the Common Professional Examination. Following this is

Even when the Legal Practice Course has been passed they must still obtain a

training contract from a solicitor¼s firm where they will work for two

years, learning practical experience. Over the period of the training

contract the trainee will be paid, but not at the same rate as a fully

qualified solicitor, and will be supervised by a solicitor. He will also

have to undergo a 20 day Professional Skills Course that improves on the

skills learnt on the LPC. When this time is over, the trainee is admitted as

In relation to the other branch the student must be a law graduate. They

must also be a member of one of the four Inns of Court, and have finished

the Bar¼s Vocational course. Like solicitors, graduate students without a

law degree may take the one year course for the Common Professional

Examination in the core subjects, then go on to qualify as a barrister. Once

the student has passed the Bar Vocational Course there is practical training

where the trainee barrister becomes a pupil to a qualified barrister. After

the first six months of pupillage, barristers can conduct their own cases

I will now consider whether the training a lawyer receives is contingent

on his pecuniary situation, and if this is the case it could mean an

impoverished law student would only be able to attend the Legal Practice

Course or equivalent, pending subsidy. I shall see whether this has a marked

effect on the way the lawyer is moulded and thus on his ability to serve the

Criticisms of the training process are rife, and I think that this has

more to do with the cost of taking the Legal Practice Course (£6,000) and

the Bar Vocational Course - as we shall find out, than anything else.

Although, there are more implications than that of mere cost here, and I

intend to fully analyse the problems this creates for the profession.

The extract below derivates from a piece written by a former magistrate,

who was requested by students of the Bar Vocational Course to give an account of

their views on the problems for Bar students. (The Future of the Bar¼, Eric

- 'When you join an Inn of Court you have a 30 per cent chance of

becoming a barrister. 1,300-1,400 people will graduate on the Bar Vocational

Course in 1999. Of these 750-800 will be successful in obtaining pupillages

in 1999/2000. For all of these there will be just 350 tenancies available.

Commencing with the BVC is equivalent to taking out a mortgage! The fees

for the BVC are £6,300 for provincial providers.../On average, students who

look for banks for funding will, if lucky enough to get the loan, end up

To draw a conclusion from this it is apparent to me that the most

pertinent pitfall lies in the restriction of the profession; it is

restricted to those who can afford it - an elitist bar, one that is heavily

oversubscribed, although curtailing the number of applicants may not be the

However, it appears that it is not just the monetary issues which are

seeking reform:- Michael Zander, QC argues that both the academic and

vocational stages of training should be ameliorated and that Law Degrees

should include preliminary training in areas such as drafting documents. He

also states that both pupillage and training contracts can be 'infinitely

variable¼[2] in quality 'ranging from excellent to deplorable depending on

where they are undertaken¼.[3] Zander further promotes that more

concatenated training is needed, like that undertaken by medical students,

with better links between the academic and vocational stages.

Irrespective of Zander¼s criticisms, I postulate that as long as a training

contract is taken on, then the trainee has one foot in the door and a law

degree or equivalent as measure of their knowledge; regardless of how little

practical or purposeful work is done during the pupillage, I believe that

with the shortage in training contracts it is important for any would-be

lawyers to seize opportunity whichever form it comes in - Zander¼s

conjectures are heinous to this persuasion. But I do concur with Zander on

the issue of more integrated training; as I will expatiate later on, the

legal system needs to develop more extensive methods of training for those

Perhaps more discerning than open criticism is harsh reform, shown when

The Lord Chancellor¼s Advisory Committee indicated in a 1996 report that the

twinned branches should cease to have separate training programs

post-graduate stage, but all students should undergo a Professional Legal

Studies course. Both are factors of discontent which serve to showcase a

significant growing unrest that bares serious undertones of instability and

uncertainty; so if this is the case then is the current system of legal

training really providing the country with the lawyers it needs?

At the same time, can it be said that the training a potential lawyer

receives is having a salient effect on the outcome of the 'gender wars¼, the

price disparity in male and female salaries? It appears to me that the law has spent most of its professional history in a male-dominated vacuum that has spawned a

culture which appears quite inimical to the other gender. For example, my

research has shown me that male and female lawyers are not equally remunerated: 'On average female trainees were offered starting salaries which were 4.4 per cent below the average for males. The maximum differential was 11.3 per cent in the

Despite the influx of women into the legal profession over recent years

- it still retains significant vestiges of its male-oriented past. This is nowhere more apparent than in the training process resulting in a disproportionately high number of male lawyers.

Another regnant criticism of the training process, in a point common to

barristers, is that non-law graduates undergo only one year of conventional

law for the Common Professional Examination. The criticism takes issue with

the fact that the main entry route to the Legal Practice Course should be

via a law degree. This seemingly obvious criteria became manifest when The

Omrod Committee - who reported on legal education in 1971 - endorsed that

view. Despite this, in practice 25 per cent of solicitors will not have

taken a law degree. However, I do not necessarily consider this detrimental

to the profession as it encourages applicants from a broader church of

people, which will increase the diversity of the legal profession. Despite

this perspective, there are arguments that diametrically oppose it:

'One critic posed the question of whether the public would be satisfied

with doctors who have only studied medicine for one year...¼ [5] This is

exactly what is transpiring in the legal profession, and after weighing up

the advantages and disadvantages of the CPE I concede that I would not place

trust in a doctor with just one year¼s experience, likewise I would feel the

same way about a lawyer who has only studied law for one year.

The next facet of legal training I shall examine, is how poor or

insufficient training can lead to charges of negligence against lawyers and

whether it is important to maintain not only the requisite legal knowledge

throughout the duration of legal training but to also ensure that the

practical skills required by lawyers are not neglected in the process.

I believe that the need for legal knowledge is essential and that this

needs to be adherent to practical skills. Due to the negligence exhibited by

some lawyers, the lack of these two attributes is often highlighted and

there have been cases in which lawyers have been sued for negligence - Saif

In said case the barrister administered erroneous information to his

client, and as a result the claimant was too late to begin actions with the

I suppose that the legal system has been marginally bettered in respect to

lawyers liability for negligence; it was a previous stipulation that a

solicitor presenting a court case could not be found liable for negligence.

Though, in Hall v Simons (2000), it was the House of Lords decision that

If trainee lawyers are aware of the harsh impositions that can be brought

against them because of negligence then they will be more inclined to adhere to the

Another condemnation of the legal system is one of over-supply, meaning

that students who have passed the Legal Practice Course are unable to obtain

a training contract. In some instances, as many as three out of every five

students who correctly completed the LPC have been unsuccessful in obtaining

Evidently there is something wrong with a system which permits students to

come as far as this, frequently shouldering large debts on the way, only to

Due to the education costs of the system in the UK it is very difficult

for those from economically disadvantaged families to fund their trainee

lawyer¼s education; in relation to this it can be said that many people from

the lower end of the social scale find the prospect of training as a solicitor consternating, perhaps from the stigma that is attached to Lawyers which stems back to the beginning of legal training when the only applicants to the profession would be those who could afford it.

This stigma is not obviated by the way our lawyers are trained; in the ever

rising cost of training I purport that our country will find it increasingly

difficult to eradicate the financial disadvantage experienced by some

lawyers. Therefore our current system is not producing the lawyers we need

as people find them harder to approach than ever due to stereotypes of the

'archetypal bigshot¼ lawyer and the costs associated with them.

If we addressed this problem, theoretically we could eliminate two adverse

aspects of the profession as we would quash the middle class/upper class

image of the lawyer and reduce the fees they are able to charge; this would

then accelerate the number of people going to lawyers for advice, and

increase the amount of poorer/ethnic students entering the profession.

I do think that academically this country¼s current system of legal

training produces and provides the lawyers that this country needs, as our

training of advocacy and other lawyer based skills are beyond serious

reproach, but academic excellence may obscure a lack in other, more primal

Our lawyers may possess the skills required, but skills such as compassion

cannot be taught with sincerity in the class room, so our education system

cannot explicitly provide the lawyers we need because it cannot provide all

the qualities that we desire in a lawyer. It is also a root of stagnation

inside our legal profession, because - as stated earlier, due to fees and

the elitism of the bar, it is increasingly difficult for those from ethnic

backgrounds and those from the poorer community to join the legal

profession. Owing to there being a depreciation of successful trainees from

these areas, those people who are currently living in the blighted areas of

To further promote the idea of the need for these 'emotional traits¼ in a

lawyer and to showcase how the current system of training does not provide

for their inclusion I shall draw on a case study from 1990 where a Supreme

Court Charter ruling excluded an illiterate man¼s murder confession and so

putting an onus on police to ensure suspects understand their Charter

'At trial, it was evident the accused had limited communication skills. He

thought the right to „counsel¾ meant the right to call a drug or alcohol

counsellor¼, R v Bruneau (1990). This case is an affecting example of how

most people do not comprehend even the most basic legal expressions.

The judge ruled the accused had been deprived of his rights by his failure

to understand them and by the failure to have them explained in terms he

could understand. The confession was ruled excluded from evidence and the

Although lawyers endure an expensive education to gain the positions

they want, many lawyers charge unreasonable amounts of money for the work

they do, „It is over publicly-funded or legal aid work ‚ and the fees charged ‚ where the bar has endured a further barrage of criticism that came to its climax with a house of lords¼ special hearing over the bills submitted by four QCs.¾- Frances Gibb, The Times Tuesday October 5 1999.

However, I consider the need for cost effectiveness is not being recognised. This is apparent when we examine how the education system provided by this country offers two branches of direction for the legal profession. I aim to explain why this country would be more benefited with just one.

Due to the separate professions of Lawyers and Barristers, two separate

fees are produced because of the two different tasks done, which could be

done quite effectively by one person - I know this is the case in America.

Our country does not help itself by training two professions, when they

could easily be merged into one and so reduce cost effectiveness and produce the

I will now state an opposition against the continuity of the twin-branches

of the legal profession and conclude how the disintegration of both

professions into the one can benefit the country in turning out lawyers that

With the current system of legal education and training, barristers and

solicitors are trained together until post-graduate stage before they branch

off. I believe that by combining both professions we will improve upon the

The negative implications for barristers would firstly be that there would

be no distinction between barristers and solicitors and therefore they would

both have equivalent amounts of advocacy and paperwork and would be of equal

status. In the current system the ratio of lawyers to clients is 2:1 but if

there was a merger the ratio would be 1:1, hence creating more competition

for employment. I imagine this extra competition might also force lawyers to

reduce their rates and as a result they would not make as much money. At the

moment there are fewer solicitors who have gained rights of audience in

higher courts than there are barristers, therefore barristers can charge

however much they like as they have a monopoly on the profession. It is

clear to me that barristers have vested interests as they would most

The most significant advantage for the general public in the amalgamation

is that it would be considerably cheaper; instead of having to pay for both

a solicitor and a barrister, clients would only have to pay fees for one

lawyer. Michael Zander demonstrates this concept well, "To have one taxi

metre running is less expensive than to have two or three." [6]

I think on the other hand the Bar could continue but in an attenuated

form. Generally barristers can be classified into two categories; those that

deal with a variety of legal issues and those who specialize in commercial

The Bar has always traditionally claimed that they provide high levels of

legal analysis, skill and expertise. However, due to the fact that solicitors in large firms are also becoming increasingly specialized and now have extended rights of audience, they could pose a threat to the claims and security of the Bar.

I consider that if there were to be training for only one profession there

would be no difference between barristers and solicitors and so they would

all have equal training and opportunity to develop the necessary skills.

Therefore, in the long run differing expertise between barristers and

solicitors would not be a problem, the way this country¼s lawyers are

Perhaps the most destabilising criticism of the legal training system is

whether or not we need professional lawyers at all. The Citizens¼ Advice

Bureux were established in 1938 and in present day there are over a thousand

throughout the country. They give general advisement without cost to anyone

on a miscellany of issues largely linked to debt and social welfare

problems, also advising on certain legal matters. They can supply

information on which local solicitors do legal aid work or give free initial

interviews. If people continue to put stock in organisations such as this,

we may find that the reliance on solicitors or other legal body¼s for the

dissolution of people¼s legal problems will rapidly decrease, and the legal

profession, as we know it, could face considerable reform. After examining

the many problems that plague the legal training system in our country I am

prone to wonder whether large scale reform would not be such a bad idea.

A point adjacent to this is the market control theory which suggests that

professions exist not to provide the best services, but as a means of

controlling competition, so the emphasis on high academic qualifications can

As an aside I think it is important to articulate that one of the reasons

why this question is so important is that legal education and training

provides not only lawyers, but eventually the judiciary with the impetus to

rule or pass judgement in a fixed way, which may be inequitable to certain

races, classes or sex. Only when the legal profession becomes more mixed in

terms of race, class and sex will the judiciary follow suit.

In conclusion, the current system of legal education and training is by no

means satisfactory; I have illustrated many flaws and many incompetencies,

and in some cases I have proferred remedies. However, what I must consider

is whether the current system of legal education and training can provide

the lawyers that this country needs. It would appear there are many issues that concern the ability of the current system of legal education to do this. Through the

course of my essay I have attempted to highlight these factors that are acting as a barrier for fairness, equality, equal rights, and many other pressing problems.

I would not say that the system is completely inept; I do not think

Britain¼s capability in legal circles internationally is a point of contention, with the British Legal System standing out as a beacon of solidity and unwavering morality - 'innocent until proven guilty¼ etc...

And as previously stated, I do not believe the academic nature of legal

training should be placed under scrutiny, for that, if nothing else, is at

least proficient. Nevertheless, I think that certain concerns must be

addressed if we are to provide a generation of lawyers that will fulfil our

If we can amend the problems I have demonstrated, such as derailing the

current tradition of elitism and nepotism - especially notable in the

barristers profession, make the entry to the LPC and BVC more accessible,

provide a system that is non-discriminatory towards the ethnic and women

contingent, and perhaps amalgamate the two separate branches of lawyers in

this country, maybe then the current system of legal education and training

would be more capable of producing the lawyers this country needs, because

[1] Martin J. - 'The English Legal System Resources Workbook¼ - Hodder &

[4] Martin J. - 'The English Legal System Resources Workbook¼ - Hodder &

[5] Martin J. - 'The English Legal System¼ - Hodder & Stoughton (2002).