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GAZETTE
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
Younger Members News
Changes in the Law
School
On 8th September 1989 the
Council of the Law Society decided
to exempt all law graduates of
Universities in the State, with
degrees containing the six core
subjects of the Final Examination -
First Part, from sitting that
examination. The result of this is
that there will be approximately
double the traditional number of
apprentices coming through the
Law School each year. In the order
of 380 are anticipated during 1990,
and also during 1991, with some
reduction thereafter.
". . . the Law Society [has]
decided to exempt all law
graduates . . . from sitting [the
Final Examination - First
Part]"
Number of Courses
The Professional Course has been
shortened. There will be four
Professional Courses during 1990,
and three per year subsequently.
Structure of Professional
Course
The number of lecturing days has
been reduced from 69 to 50. Most
modules have now been coalesced
into four major modules, which are
as follows:
Litigation,
now including Labour
Law and Family Law,
Conveyancing,
now including New
Houses, Registered Land, Planning,
Landlord and Tenant, Ground Rents
and V.A.T.
Probate
including Wills and
Administration of Estates,
Capital Tax.
There will also be an independent
module in
Commercial Law.
At the
moment, this is being confined to
three days, although it is hoped to
improve upon this as time and
resources permit.
Reduction of Time
The method by which the course is
being reduced from 69 days to 50
days is by compression rather than
elimination.
Fundamentally, the entire course
has been critically examined, with
a view to removing the incidence of
duplicated coverage - such as
taking of instructions for District
Court, Circuit Court and High Court
- and further filling up days which
had tended to end early.
In some incidences a decision
has been taken to allot certain
portions of the courses to the
Advanced Course. For example, in
Litigation, the Road Traffic
By
A l b e r t P o w e r ,
Assistant Director of
Education, Law School,
Blackball Place
Offences Day seems to adapt
better to the Criminal Law Module
on the Advanced Course. Likewise,
the element of Damages in the day
on Negotiations can be assigned to
the Advanced Course. In cases
where it is impossible to avoid
some truncation, the preferred rem-
edy is to increase the significance
of preliminary reading handouts.
Co-Ordinators
The Education Committee has
appointed two co-ordinators in
each of the four major modules.
The purpose of these co-ordinators
is
1. To review and upgrade, or
arrange for the upgrading of, the
materials being distributed to
the students in that module.
2. To prepare, from questions sub-
mitted by the individual day
consultants, an examination
paper in that module, together
with model answers.
Consultants and Tutors
It is recognised that there will be a
necessary increase in the pool of
consultants and tutors in order to
run more courses per year. To that
end, a recruitment drive is being
embarked upon by the Education
Department. This drive has been
supported by a circular letter to the
Profession from the President of
the Society and the Chairman of
the Education Committee, which
letter was included in the
December issue of the Gazette.
Examinations
One of the methods by which time
is to be saved is the elimination of
the conventional continuous ass-
essments tests. These tended to be
somewhat sporadic, and were
sometimes regarded less than
seriously by some of the appren-
tices. The new apprentices have
been advised that there will be an
increased emphasis on the assess-
ment procedures. Essentially, at the
end of each of the major modules,
there will be a three hour written
". . . the [Professional] course
is being reduced from 69 days
to 50 . . . by compression."
paper. This paper will be practice
oriented, but will be based upon the
entirety of the constituent subjects
in each of the major modules. For
example, in Conveyancing there will
no longer be a separate paper for
Planning, Landlord and Tenant Law,
Registered Land, and so forth, but
one paper in which these formerly
separate modules will appear. The
results of the four examinations in
the major modules, together with
the tutors' assessments, and the
results of a more conventional con-