The Gazette 1971

for concern in that regard. The Council will receive

from Irish Underwriting Agencies a report on the

finances of the scheme for the first complete year with

suggestions arising from claims, experience to date and

how losses can be minimised. This is a professional enter-

prise initiated with the assistance of the Society's insur-

ance brokers and it is obviously in the interests of all

members to adopt safeguards and business methods

which will keep losses to a minimum because the insur-

ance premiums payable must in the short or long run

be governed by claims experience.

The "Gazette"

Members in recent months will have noticed the

improvements to the Society's

Gazette.

Mr. Gavan-

Duffy, the Editor, is anxious to receive suitable contri-

butions from members. The cover and form of the

Gazette

has been changed, beginning with the May

issue. This will cost more but it is hoped to offset a

considerable part of the expenses by advertising.

Legal Education

In the field of legal education, the item of current

interest in the recently-published Report of the Com-

mittee on Legal Education in England presided over

by the Hon. Mr. Justice Ormrod. The publication of

this Report comes at a critical point of time. The pro-

posals submitted by your Council to the Minister for

Justice in June 1969 have been examined and com-

mented upon by the Higher Education Authority and

the Department of Education, and are now back with

our own Minister for his consideration. The Minister

has already commented upon the Ormrod Report, and

there is little doubt but that it will have some influence

upon his views. It therefore behoves us to study the

Report carefully and endeavour to anticipate the features

that are likely to appeal to the authorities with whom

we have to deal.

Ormrod Report on Legal Education

The main conclusions and recommendations of the

Report are:

(1) Academic and vocational legal training should as

far as possible be integrated.

(2) Legal education should be planned in three stages,

(i) academic; (ii) professional or vocational; (iii) con-

tinuing after qualification and throughout the lawyer's

professional career.

(3) The obtaining of a law degree should be the

normal mode of entry.

(4) Certain non-graduates and graduates with degrees

which do not qualify as law degrees should be entitled

to complete the academic stage by taking a two-year

course at university level and passing an examination.

(5) The professional or vocational stage should last

for one year and should consist of 'courses strongly

orientated towards practice provided in universities or

colleges of higher education.

(6) The obtaining of a certificate or diploma granted

as a result of attending these courses together with a

law degree or its equivalent would establish qualification

for practice.

(7) Apprenticeship should be abolished instead of

which there should be a period of three years after

admission during which a solicitor would, as a condition

of being granted a full practising certificate at the end

of that period, practise with a limited certificate as an

assistant solicitor.

(8) Transfer between the branches of the profession

should be possible without examination, the only require-

ment being an appropriate period of pupillage or

limited practice.

(9) There should be a standing Advisory Committee

on Legal Education to act as a link between the univer-

sities and the professions.

(10) Consideration should be given to the establish-

ment of an Institute of Professional Legal Studies to

co-ordinate, organise and promote projects in all fields

of continuing training for the legal profession.

The recommendations of the Report have much in

common with the proposals put forward by your

Council. It differs, nevertheless, in two significant

features, namely :

(a) the recommendation that the vocational courses

should be provided at universities or colleges of higher

education, and

(b) the abolition of apprenticeship and the substi-

tution of a limited practising certificate after completion

of the vocational stage.

The first is, however, only a majority recommendation,

and may conceivably give rise to some difference of

opinion amongst members of the profession in England.

We will watch the outcome with interest.

Objectives of Academic and Professional Stages

With regard to the content of the several stages, the

Report comments as follows.

(a) The objectives of the academic stage should be to

provide the student with :

(i) a basic knowledge of the law, which involves

covering certain "core" subjects, and acquiring a

sound grasp of legal principles and the ability to

discover for himself the law on any subject which he

is likely to be called on to deal with in his early

years of practice;

(11) an understanding of the relationship of law to

the social and economic environment in which it

operates; and

(iii) the intellectual training necessary to enable him

to handle facts and apply abstract concepts to them.

(b) The objectives of the professional stage are to

enable the student to adapt the legal knowledge and

the intellectual skills acquired at the academic stage to

the problems of legal practice, and to lay the founda-

tions for the continuing development of professional

skills and techniques throughout his career; the amount

of substantive law to be studied should be kept to the

minimum. The vocational course should include :

(i) practical exercises in professional problems and

procedures;

(ii) some additional law subjects of a "practical"

nature; and

(iii) some introduction to certain non-legal subjects,

especially elementary behavioural science and busi-

ness finance.

education is that of continuing education after quali-

fication, both in the early years and throughout the

professional career. The field suggested is divided into

five broad sections, namely,

(i) courses in judicial duties;

(ii) refresher courses for practitioners;

(iii) courses in new legislation;

(iv) specialist courses (including foreign and Com-

mon Market law);

(v) inter-disciplinary courses.

The items to which I would like to draw your atten-

tion are :

(a) in the academic stage—an understanding of the

relationship of law to the social and economic environ-

ment in which it operates;

(b) in the vocational stage—some introduction to

certain non-legal subjects, especially elementary behav-