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Young Barristers Society in December last 1 gave a
general outline of my thinking on the subject of legal
education reform. My principal theme was that there
should be a common system of professional education
under which it would be open to a student on quali-
fying to ch(x)se which branch of the law he would enter.
I envisaged one professional law school to which nobody
would be admitted until he had obtained a university
degree. Accompanying these changes in the educational
system, I foresaw the need for improved facilities for
post-graduate professional training.
Since then the Ormrod Committee Report has been
published, and I was interested to see that in general
the Committee's views coincide with mine. I hope this
Report will he examined in detail as I feel it will prove
very useful to us in considering the reform of our own
system of legal education. After all, this country has
practically the same system of legal education and the
same division of the professions as England, and we
are both applicants for membership of the European
Economic Community.
Ormrod Teaching Recommendations
While on the subject of the Ormrod Committee
Report I should like to mention a few of what are, in
my view, the most significant of the Committee's recom-
mendations. In order to integrate, as far as possible,
law teaching for the two branches of the legal profes-
sion, the Committee have recommended that the teach-
ing of academic law should in future he undertaken
exclusively in the universities. They envisage the educa-
tion and training of the legal profession being under-
taken in three separate stages :
(1) the academic stage, which would normally involve
taking a university law degree;
(2) the professional or vocational stage which would
consist of a practical vocational course to be provided
by a limited number of universities into which the
present professional law schools would merge, followed
by practical experience under supervision; and
(3) continuing training after qualification and
throughout the lawyer's professional career.
As far as the solicitors' profession is concerned, this
would mean the end of the articles of apprenticeship
system, which would be replaced by a period of limited
practice under supervision after qualification.
One of the by-products of the common system of
training and education recommended by the Committee
is that transfers between the branches of the profession
should be possible without examinations having to be
taken. Probably the only requirement would be a suit-
able period of pupillage or limited practice. The Com-
mittee state that "while many people seem to be able
to make a decisive choice at an early stage . . . there
will always be a number who later feel that they would
like to change from one branch to the other". I agree
wholeheartedly with this view.
Academic Teaching in Universities
As I have already said, we must give serious thought
to the desirability of handing over the academic teach-
ing of law entirely to the universities. From the purely
practical point of view they are the best equipped to
provide this type of teaching. It seems to me that the
professional bodies clearly recognise the value of
university training by the fact that at present they grant
certain exemptions to students who are attending a
university or who possess university degrees. Looking at
the matter from the strictly educational aspect, I believe
that law students would benefit tremendously from the
stimulus of the broader academic environment of the
university. In this connection the following extract from
the report of our own Commission on Higher Education
(of which the Chief Justice was Chairman) is relevant :
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