The Gazette 1972

both of which should be concerned to produce better

lawyers to serve society. It considered that the profes-

sional bodies, as bodies responsible to the public for

maintenance of the standards of the profession, must

concern themselves with what and how their students

were being taught; if they were to hand over all respon-

sibility for the teaching of substantive law to the univer-

sities and colleges, and to recognise the law degree as

part of the professional qualification, they would require

some reassurance. But, it is forthrightly pointed out by

doing so they would gain important advantages: "Legal

education will be in the hands of professional education-

alists, whereas the profession itself can never be more

than enlightened amateurs who can only give part-time

attention to its problems." (Para. 107.)

In the same paragraph attention is drawn to inade-

quate communication between the profession and the

law faculties: "Non-communication breeds distrust,

ignorance and misunderstanding". This is a strong

motivation for the recommendation that an Advisory

Committee on Legal Education, consisting of represen-

tatives of the profession and legal educators, should be

established. (Paras. 116 and 117 give detailed proposals

for the composition and functions of the proposed

Advisory Committee.) These are perhaps some of the

most significant observations and recommendations of

the Committee.

There is a correct emphasis on the vital necessity for

mutual trust and respect between all concerned with

legal education if the proposals are to be successfully

implemented. But there is also a degree of caution in

this part of the Report. While the professional bodies,

it was very wisely asserted, ought not to attempt to

specify the contents of the curriculum as a condition of

recognition of a particular law degree, if, however,

contrary to the Committee's expectations, the gap be-

tween die academic and professional bodies widened in

the future rather than narrowed, some form of specifi-

cation might become necessary, although it hoped it

would not. (Para. 108).) Those who may find it difficult

to envisage the circumstances in which English law

schools would accept professionally imposed prescrip-

tion of courses should consider an earlier part of the

Report where it seemed clear to the Committee "that

almost nowhere outside the British Isles

(sic)

does the

legal profession now exercise the kind of influence on

university law teaching that it has exercised here

through the subject-by-subject exemption system."

(Para. 70.)

Problems of recognition of law degrees

A reaction which illustrates the dangers in the Com-

mittee's wary approach appears in a Memorandum on

the Report published (October, 1971) by the Young

Solicitors' Group of the Law Society: "We are nervous

of an acceptance of all [law degree] courses in their

present form as it is our belief that some of them will

contain matter largely irrelevant to the general legal

practitioner and, more importantly, omit some of the

basic legal principles he will require . . ." (Memoran-

dum, p. 6, para. 4:2.) This expresses an attitude cal-

culated to raise the blood pressure of most university

law teachers and comes ill after a prior admission that:

"We are not properly qualified to judge the syllabus

of each of such courses". At the same time the Group

goes on to recommend that Company Law be an addi-

tional "core subject".

It is understandable that the profession has to be

convinced of the advantages of recognition of the law

degree. The Committee had to take the situation as it

found it and start from there, so naturally some re-

assurance had to be offered by way of inducement to

the profession to concede long-held positions. But all

that should reasonably be required of the law schools is

that the "basic core subjects" (under whatever names)

should be included as compulsory subjects in the law

degree course. This means that the profession will have

to resist the temptation to insist on a larger core. One

Australian law faculty, when considering reform of its

curriculum to allow for a greater degree of choice on

the part of its students, was confronted with professional

demands for the inclusion of seventeen compulsory

subjects if its degree were to continue to have recog-

nition as a qualification for practice. This is admittedly

an extreme example, but it does illustrate the problem

of professional recognition.

"Balance" in America

The U.S.A. was held out by the Committee as "per-

haps the leading example of a system in which the

practising profession and the law schools have attained

a balance between academic freedom and professional

participation". This was possibly "because in America,

to a greater extent than here, the law teachers are seen

as an important section of the legal profession". (Para.

70.) Assuredly American law teachers have long had a

great sense of academic freedom. But there, as the Re-

port itself shows (in Appendix D, para. 123), the prac-

tising profession, in the form of the American Bar Asso-

ciation, does not, in approving law schools which con-

form to its standards, in any way attempt to prescribe

the subjects which are taught at the law schools, or the

way in which they are taught. The price paid for this

freedom from interference is that no exemptions for

subjects taken at law school are allowed in the State

Bar examinations which in almost all states must be

passed in order to gain admission to practice. In recent

years, there has been growing criticism in the U.S.A. of

its system of legal education and especially of its lack

of professional- practical training. The hoary cry from

the profession about the law schools not adequately

preparing their students for practice has been heard

more frequently. This may in time lead to an upsetting

in the delicate balance in that country.

Curricular Diversification

Another aspect of the problem is die number of law

graduates who do not in fact enter the legal profession.

The Committee was not able to obtain precise figures

but the evidence suggested that 25% would not be an

under-estimate. (Para. 118.) It is reckoned that about

50% of Australian graduates do not enter private prac-

tice. The law faculties have a duty also to their students

who will alter into careers, legal and non-legal, in indus-