The Gazette 1972

sity, has meant that largely it is the full-time teaching

staff in the law schools who have become the greatest

influence in the shaping of curricula and syllabuses. But

even now they have to tread warily because they have

to retain the confidence of the profession to ensure that

recognition of the law degree for professional qualifi-

cation purposes is maintained. Consequently, the courses

will often include some subjects which would be con-

sidered by an English or Irish diehard academic to be

too "technical" or "vocational" to be included in an

academic degree course.

Post-graduate vocational training in Australasia

But, as previously indicated, there is already in some

Australian jurisdictions a post-graduate period in which

such subjects as are not included in the degree course

but are required for professional qualification may be

undertaken, and this tendency is growing. This is also

the position in New Zealand where the law graduate, if

he wishes to enter the profession, must pass examin-

ations in six "practical" subjects which cannot be taken

during the law degree course (Civil Procedure, Con-

veyancing and Draftmanship, Evidence, Legal Ethics

and Advocacy, Office Administration and Accountancy,

Taxation and Estate Planning). (The system in Scotland

is not dissimilar). In any event, whether or not included

in the degree course, these subjects are normally taught

only in the universities, but by part-time lecturers who

are practising members of the legal profession. Further,

there is a growing recognition by nearly everyone in-

terested in legal education that it is not within the frame-

work of the law degree that full professional com-

petence can, or even should, be acquired. This, allied

with a growing disenchantment in Australia with the

mediaeval system of training by service under articles

and by pupillage, has led to the belief that formal prac-

tical training is also necessary and that this should be

systematic and perhaps given in an institution specially

created for the purpose, whether or not it is associated

with a university. Pioneer work has already been carried

out in Victoria and elsewhere, and at the Australian

National University in Canberra the Federal Govern-

ment has allocated funds for a "legal workshop" (to be

m operation from 1972) in which law graduates will

work for six months in a simulated office situation as

au alternative to articles of clerkship. These develop-

ments are a reflection of the current dissatisfaction with

existing training methods.

The truth is that even in the closely integrated struc-

tures of law degree courses and professional qualifi-

cations as have hitherto existed in Australia and New

Zealand it has been found to be impracticable to attempt

to cover in the law degree courses all the necessary

facets of systematic training required to produce a per-

son fit to practise law. The role of the university in

the making of the lawyer is a vital one, and it is indeed

°nly in the university that the intellectual pursuit of an

education in law should be offered. As the Scottish

Faculty of Advocates stated in its memorandum to the

9°nrod Committee, "the most important single prin-

ciple . . . has been the recognition that the proper place

for the teaching of law is a univeristv." (Para. 69.) But

it is generally acknowledged that the academic role of

the university is a limited one in law and that the bones

and muscles of the intellectual habits cultivated in the

law school must be covered with the flesh and blood of

the skills and techniques necessary to survive in the

professional world outside the law school.

Other professions

The Ormrod Committee, however, in looking at edu-

cation for nine other professions, found a different

attitude. In para. 80 it is stated: "There are not many

in the other professions who advocate a clearly distin-

guished formal academic course and an organised prac-

tical training course, probably because it is generally

expected that the university degree will be universal,

and will cover both 'academic' and 'professional' re-

quirements — or that there is no real distinction be-

tween these concepts." There are perhaps some in the

world of law also who would agree with these views,

for one of the most difficult tasks is to distinguish

"academic" and "practical" (or "vocational") subjects

in law. The attitude of many American law teachers is

that there is no branch of law or practice which is not

fit to be taught at a university law school; it is all a

question of how it is taught.

Despite the many approving references to medical

education throughout the Ormrod Report, it stops short

at recommending a fully integrated degree structure

such as exists in medicine. (These medical references

are without doubt a consequence of the Chairman's

unusual career, for he switched from law to medicine,

and after a war-time medical career turned back again

to the Bar.) Perhaps the Committee, though, in evolving

its proposals, realised that too close a parallel cannot be

drawn between medicine and law. These two great dis-

ciplines are very dissimilar in their basic approaches

and methods, and the nature of the disciplines must

determine how they are taught. But, leaving aside the

fundamental difference between the physical and social

sciences, is there not a fallacy in the belief that there

is not even now the same distinction between academic

education and professional (or vocational) training in

medicine as exists in law? Certainly the degree structure

in medicine is very different from that in law, for all

medical education is theoretically within and under the

control of a single entity, the medical school, and ultim-

ately the student emerges with a university degree (or

professional diploma) which is a qualification for prac-

tice in itself. (Full registration is subject to his serving

satisfactorily a period of compulsory internship, with

which may be compared the period of limited practice

after qualification for solicitors recommended by the

Report). To that extent, there is integration, but surely

a clear distinction exists between the pre-clinical years

of basic or ground-work teaching and the later years of

clinical or applied training.

Relations between the Law Schools and the profession

in England

The Report was anxious that firm links should be

established between the law faculties and the profession