After writing a piece on the Legal Services Act 2007, (which is due to be implemented fully this year,) I got to thinking about what it would mean for the future of law schools and legal education as a whole.
According to the Legal Services board, UK legal education is regarded extremely highly across the world. With 6,000 lawyers working overseas, the UK is one of, “if not the biggest”, exporter of legal talent in the world.1 With that in mind, would changing it to fit with regulations implemented by the Legal Service Act 2007, jeopardise the UK’s standing?
Historically, England’s legal education grew from the perspective of the legal profession. According to Weber’s analysis of the emergence of legal professions and types of legal thought, England’s development centred on the courts and the lawyers that grew up around them.2 So when, recently, the chairman of the LSB hypothesised that the “dialogue and interplay” between legal education and practice was no longer happening, it should concern us greatly.3 If the foundations of legal education revolve around this communication, with such big changes happening in the vocational world, education that ignores these is sure to fail.
A review of legal education is currently being conducted and is scheduled to finish in November this year. This is largely due to the massive reforms being undertaken in the wake of the Legal Services Act, and the desire to assess the Act’s impact upon education. With less need for legally qualified people in law firms, and an abundance of para-legals, will law schools have to reconsider their place in education? With an increased focus on technology, some law schools are considering online degrees. Harvard and MIT in America just joined together in a quest to offer free online degrees across the world to anyone who has an internet connection. If free online degrees are the way forward in terms of the pressures of the LSA, then the point of education is challenged. Graduates are reviewed on their abilities and on their university’s status. If a degree is accessible to anyone it becomes irrelevant.
Professor de Friend advises that it is not just because of the new act that we need reform in legal education, “This tightly regulated formalised system of training which excludes more people than it lets in needs radically shifting [to] achieve… a proper education and training system that runs right from the undergraduate to the workplace in a properly integrated and thought-through fashion.”4
That being so, is there really any way that can be fixed easily? In an economic climate like 2011-2012 has seen, there are hardly enough jobs to go around and so the only way that this fluency can be achieved is by limiting the number of graduates, rather than increasing the number of jobs. Dr Valerie Shrimplin, Head of Education on the Bar Standards Council, has begun to take such a route, “The mismatch between graduation and achieving a training contract or pupillage leads to immense competition. We are introducing an aptitude test for the Bar Vocational Course in order to ensure so that the BVC can be more focused and the chances of the students on the course will be optimised more because the course will not be diluted by those that are not suitable”.5
This is not enough. Limiting the number of wannabes is not strictly possible, especially if they are similarly intellectually matched. Richard Susskinds suggests that alternative job markets will open up such as Legal infomediaries.6
These would offer a basic service of dissecting legal problems, assessing the severity of them and recommending the best service to deal with them. Perhaps a slightly unnecessary role, and certainly not one that intelligent young minds are going to aspire to in the same way as they do solicitors or barristers.
Another dimension to consider is that the courses could become primarily business focused, with law as a secondary subject. For instance Diane Burleigh suggests we will see “a great deal more specialisation: more practical skills, more soft skills and more business skills”.7 Strevins goes so far as to suggest that law schools will have to rearrange themselves in order to advertise the cultivation of a unique talent or skill; “Just as solicitors will have to contend with big brands so, it is suggested, Law Schools will have to consider their own brand of law degree.”8 To a degree we are already witnessing this change. As law firms stress their desire commercial awareness, more Universities are honing in on the importance of extra-curricular experiential learning.
There is no guessing how this would affect our standing in the world in terms of legal education. Though there is already evidence that more and more newly graduated lawyers are abandoning their home country in search of a more stable future in the law abroad. At what point does the sacrifice of these potentially brilliant minds and lawyers, reflect negatively on the UK’s legal system? With so many leaving, it could be argued a decent British legal education is fuelling the world’s economy rather than the local one.
It is all very well trying to suggest the reformation of an education to fit a new form of vocation, but it doesn’t seem that the profession currently is over-enthusiastic about the reforms. Creating more paralegal-esque jobs is not going to satisfy an increasingly intelligent student population in an economic climate that forces people to do their best. With such a large proportion striving to be at the top of a legal profession, more aren’t going to settle for less. Though some argue that a diluted law degree to suit all is long over-due, as John Cooper QC insists, legal education is something that everyone should learn.9 Perhaps he is right. Perhaps now is the time to make legal knowledge a commodity. Perhaps, essentially ensuring equal access to all under the LSA should apply to the learning, not just the practice.
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1John Flood, “Legal Education in the Global Context Challenges from Globalization, Technology and Changes in Government Regulation” [2011] Report for Legal Services Board, Uni Westminster
2Max Weber “The Legal Honoratiores and the Types of Legal Thought”, [1978] Economy and Society Volume 2: 784-802.
3David Edmonds, “Training the Lawyers of the Future—A Regulator’s View”, Lord Upjohn Lecture, [2010], Legal Services Board.
4Professor de Friend in John Flood, “Legal Education in the Global Context Challenges from Globalization, Technology and Changes in Government Regulation” [2011] Report for Legal Services Board, Uni Westminster
5Dr Valerie Shrimplin “Future of Legal Services & Legal Education” (Debate hosted by Law Department London South Bank University) 2011 <http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/ahs/news/070311.shtml> accessed 1/04.12
6Richard Susskind in John Flood, “Legal Education in the Global Context Challenges from Globalization, Technology and Changes in Government Regulation” [2011] Report for Legal Services Board, Uni Westminster
7Diane Burleigh “Future of Legal Services & Legal Education” (Debate hosted by Law Department London South Bank University) 2011 <http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/ahs/news/070311.shtml> accessed 1/04.12
8Caroline Strevins, “The changing nature of the legal services market and the implications for the qualifying law degree” [2011] 1 Web JCLI
9Professor John Cooper QC “The Future of Legal Education” [2011] StretLaw <http://stretlaw.co.uk/2012/03/02/professor-john-cooper-qc-the-future-of-legal-education/> accessed 03/04/12
I think (with an educated guess)... 
Informative piece Emily. (pingback approved by the way!)
I’m with John (Cooper QC) in that a basic level of the law ought to underpin our school leavers’ mind-set, thus empower them at an early age.
For my part I’m not suggesting that all will go on to study law (thankfully, as the ‘system’ is already at breaking point) but will have an appreciation of it. It won’t stop crime, but that’s not the (my) argument. What is hoped is more will have a better understanding and be less reliant upon lawyers for smaller legal issues, such as consumer law.
Thank you, Gary. I’m pretty much in agreement with you on that front, as lack of understanding in general, let alone in law, terrifies me in a democratic society! But I fear some of us may just be idealists, or perhaps that is too cynical of me!