The Gazette 1979

GAZETTE

SEPTEMBER 1979

have had contact.

FOOTNOTES

Examinations in the Future

The final matter I would like to touch on — though

time will permit me to do so only very briefly — is

examinations. Most legal practice courses, up to date,

have eschewed the idea of examinations, partly, I think,

because it has been thought that they were not suitable for

testing a person's competence in that kind of course, but

partly too because they seemed to smack of qualifying

examinations, and, as such, liable to distort the

educational process and to inhibit sound education.

concede that there is more than a grain of truth in that

latter point of view. But I also think we are gradually

being forced to accept that assessment, even continuous

assessment, if it can be effectively carried out at all, does

not provide any satisfactory criterion for measuring the

competence of those who do Legal Practice Courses.

Some better form of measuring that (and, of course, of

checking against indolence, non-attendance and plain

copying from each other) must be devised. I do not

envisage it as having anything in common with the usual

University-type examinations, but I am sure it is by no

means beyond the wit of modern educationists to devise

some scheme adequate for the purpose.

In summary then what I see ahead of us is a period

devoted to the task of consolidating the very substantial

progress that has been made up to date. In particular, I

see us having to wrestle with the problem of defining in

terms of proper educational objectives the respective roles

of the various stages of legal education, the Law School

stage, and the apprenticeship stage, and of co-ordinating

them so that they become one integrated and effective

scheme of legal education. I also see us taking steps to

revive and restore the ideal of apprenticeship as a most

important part of legal education. And I see us exploring

better ways of assessing the competence of those who

complete legal practice course training.

But none of this in any way detracts from the very

great achievement that the establishment of legal practice

courses marks. There has probably been no more

significant event in legal education since Blackstone

delivered his famous series of lectures at Oxford in the

1750's, which set the scene for the rise of our great

modern Law Schools. It is always tempting, though of

course dangerous, to try to look into the future. But if I

may, I would like to venture the view that, with the

passage of time, the role that Legal Practice Courses will

play in the education of a lawyer will not diminish, but

will grow until they become a central part of that process.

And so, Mr. President, I deem it a privilege to have

been invited to be here at the opening of this new Law

School. In the accommodation provided (and surely there

can be none better anywhere in the world), in your happy

choices of a Director of Education and a Director of

Training, In the careful and detailed planning that has

gone into it, no course could have a more propitious

beginning. To all those involved in that planning and

preparation, I extend my warmest and sincerest

congratulations, and I wish the School all the success I

am sure it will have.

1. Twining, Pericles and the Plumber, (1967) 83 L.Q.R. 396 at 397.

2. (1943) 52 Yale L. J. 203.

3. Twining, op. cit. at 413, 414.

4. Ibid, at 398.

5. See Ormrod, "Education and Training for the Professions,"

Current Legal Problems

30 (1975), 15.

6. Radcliffe, The Lawyer and his Times, Opening Address, 150th

Anniversary of the Harvard Law School, 1967.

Radcliffe, Not in Feather Beds, Rosenthal Lecture, Northwestern

University Law School, May, 1960.

8. See Irvin Rutter, "A Jurisprudence of Lawyers' Operations",

Jo.

Leg. Ed.

13(1961) 301; Gullickson,

Structuring a Legal Practice

Course

(1976).

9. Op. Cit.

(9a) Twining, op. cit., at 399, 400.

10. Structure of Initial Training/Britain, Paper delivered to the

Ditchley Conference, 1967.

11. The Lawyer and His Times, Opening Address at 150th

Anniversary of the Harvard Law School, 1967.

12. See Ormrod, loc. cit., pp. 17, 19.

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