Written by Hayley Taylor (AS/A2 Law Student)                                                                                      

In this essay I am going to briefly describe about the two types of lawyers this country contains and briefly describe a bit about their legal education and training. I will then give the criticisms of this system, consisting of both positive and negative criticisms along with how well I believe the system could perform or be reformed. I will then come to a conclusion on whether this country does provide the lawyers that our society needs. Firstly the two most common lawyers are known as barristers and solicitors and are jointly referred to as the legal profession. There are roughly 80,000 solicitors and around 10,000 barristers currently practising. Only 600 of the 10,000 belong to the Queens Counsel whom are the top barristers practising in the country.

A solicitor training does not involve as many years as barristers, and the training of each usually branch off after the law degree. This can have many limitations, which involves the fact that each profession within the future cannot cover specified areas in which the other mainly deals with. Solicitors use to deal with only paperwork and many clients could only negotiate with a solicitor before a barrister was introduced to them. The system has currently changed involving more barristers being directly used by clients. Also rights of audience and advocacy rights have increased amongst solicitors, which allows both professions to start and finish a case. This is a positive impact upon the legal profession as its cost-effective and saves both the professions getting involved in one case, allowing more cases to be dealt with. Fusion is also a positive introduction to the legal system as there are many advantages. These advantages include reduced cost as only one lawyer would be needed, less duplication of work because only one person would be doing the work instead of a solicitor preparing a case and then passing it on to a barrister. However merging has become less important due to the change made by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and Access to Justice Act 1999, which allows both a solicitor and barrister to take a case from start to finish. A criticism of this could be the fact that if a barrister and solicitor now cover the same sort of workload then how can the two be separated in training and how is the pay determined. Surely solicitors would take on less complicated cases, however the Courts and Legal Services Act would need to stress this.

Barristers and Solicitors training is quite different. A Trainee solicitor can take 3 different routes in order to qualify as a solicitor. The easiest and most common route would be to gain A levels or equivalent, complete a law degree, spend one year on the LPC (Legal Practice Course) in which client interviewing, negotiation, advocacy, drafting documents and legal research is carried out. The next stage would be to spend two years completing a training contract in which the trainee would work with a firm of solicitors shadowing their work before qualifying as a solicitor. However this training process does not produce the best solicitors that this country needs. There are many problems that prevent some with huge talent qualifying for example the financial problem. Students would firstly need to pay for university fees that could be in excess of £20,000 and then the Legal Practice course can be around £6,000. Some students manage to complete the law degree however struggle after paying another £6,000 for the LPC. Therefore many drop out after degree level. This does not help the legal profession, as good, talented young lawyers may be among these, however the financial difficulty prevents them pursuing the career. Secondly a point which can commonly be raised towards barristers, is that some trainees pursuing the career may have come from an art degree with a CPE (a one year Common Professional Examination). This suggests that that individual may not have the appropriate knowledge to create one of England and Walesís best legal personnel. I consider it worrying the fact that some of our lawyers before entering the LPC have only studied law for one whole year, taking into consideration the pure broadness and death of the subject, surely these trainees would not create the best lawyers. Another problem that should be considered is the over-supply of students and some may be refused and unable to obtain a training contract. As quoted by J. Martin ëin some years, as many as three out of every five students who successfully completed the LPC have been unable to obtain a training contract.í Clearly this shows a wrong in the system, which allows students to get as far as this, often incurring large debts on the way, only to prevent qualification at such a late stage. Also considering the declaration of this statement, this in itself may prevent young talented, intellectual students to take on law for a future career.

Barristers take quite a different route to solicitors. However solicitors are gradually being given advocacy rights in which barristers gain through doing Pupillage (apart of their route to qualifying as a barrister), which takes them 12 months all in all and costs them £7,000. This may be considered a waste of money and talent, as more and more solicitors are being given advocacy rights/Certificate of Advocacy. Barristers must gain a law degree or complete the CPE, however this is rare. The next stage involves membership of an Inn of Court, the four Inns being Lincolnís Inn, Grays Inn, Middle Temple and Inner Temple. Here the trainee barrister would need to dine 12 times to mix with more professional/senior barristers. This is a very encouraging part of the system as it gives younger, inexperienced and junior barristers a chance to hear from more experienced personnel. Then a one-year Vocational Course is required before the Pupillage. This is simply ëon the jobí training. After the first six months of pupillage, barristers are eligible to appear in court and may conduct their own cases. During pupillage trainee barristers are paid a small salary, usually about half the amount paid to trainee solicitors. However the concept still lies with barristers that to become one you must be from a wealthy middle-class background. This makes it difficult on equally intelligent if not even more intelligent trainees, as they may not have the financial support as middle-class students do, and therefore would drop out as a result. Another problem concerning barristers is if they do not reach the top level they may find themselves finding other jobs and becoming out of touch with up to date law, due to them being self-employed. The Legal system should encourage more educational lessons of new up to date law, as the law is always changing.

Barristers are not as easily accessible to the community as solicitors, which ends up being an inconvenience and not very cost-effective. Producing a case can be very expensive, however dealing with two lawyers in the process can waste a lot of money and time. The system is dealing with certain issues of both lawyers undertaking a case from start to finish, however this undermines the systems legal training separations of the two professions. If the two type of lawyer deal with a case in the same way, then maybe it should consider reforming the training process so that the divide in the training for each profession does not divide so early. Barristers are also considered to have a certain aloofness about them, which prevents a lot of clients from approaching them directly. Some feel intimidated due to the pure status that barristers represent. This needs to be considered highly by the system, and less clients approaching barristers and the more rights solicitors are given to present a case from start to finish the more barristers will find themselves out of work. Also the system of training contributes directly to this problem, because it is so difficult for a student without well-off parents to survive financially during training, and so the profession continues its middle-class base.

The increased use of unqualified legal advisors in agencies such as the Citizens Advice Bureaux also brings me to question the need for professional lawyers at all. Considering all the money and time wasted becoming a solicitor or barrister, it could be viewed as pointless due to the high involvement concerning the citizenís advice bureaux and other such law firms. The Citizens Advice Bureaux can apply for contracts to do Government-funded work and was first set up in 1938. Today there are about a thousand through the country and they give general advice free to anyone on a variety of issues mostly connected to social welfare problems and debt, but also advice on legal matters. However in effect their knowledge of how law works would only stretch so far and therefore the need for lawyers may still be preferable. The negative lying within the CAB is the fact that they might be taking more law issues away from the legal profession which would again come down to whether trainees have wasted their time and money becoming specialised in specific areas. The legal education and the training involved becoming a solicitor or barrister also leads to this countryís Judiciary. Therefore the system would need to consider neutrality and equality and on mixed basis. This involves both equal numbers of females qualifying as barristers and solicitors as males and mixed races qualifying in higher numbers, which is another criticism of the profession. Women and ethnic minorities are lacking/under-represented in such an occupation and therefore the system should provide more encouragement for those groups. Itís important that judges and both branches of lawyer have a balance on gender, race and even class. Without a balance the English legal system is faced with the problem and criticism of a white, middle-class male which is positively fading. Women are forming an increasing number of the entrants to the professions. They now make up just over half of new solicitors and just under half of new entrants to the bar. Ethnic minorities are also quite well represented at the bar and in 2000 minority lawyers made up 8% of barristers in private practice. Future reform should not be ignored by the legal profession, and they should take into account reports such as the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) Report 2001. Amongst other matters it recommended that people should be allowed direct access to the bar and this means that members of the public would be able to brief a barrister without going to a solicitor. Also mixed professional partnerships should be allowed the so-called ëone-stop shopí and advertising of comparative fees and comparative success rates should be allowed. The more reform taking place the better the English Legal System will become.

Overall I conclude that by weighing up the evidence and criticisms of the English Legal System, I believe that this country does not provide the Lawyers that it needs. Firstly the training and educational training can be picked at quite deeply and the majority of the population feels intimidated by such professions. Also all students are not given fair chances to show their true ability due to the financial trouble and over-supply problems. I believe the system can reform itself a lot to improve, and if it needs to take that step to improve the profession for the future then it should seriously consider how it can improve and make suitable changes. In my answer I have given brief descriptions the whole way through my essay about the legal profession and the education and training involved. However I have also criticised the system and explained how it should or could be improved. This has allowed me to come to a firm conclusion about whether the training and educational basis to the professions is providing England and Wales with the lawyers we need.