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Academic standards for entering the Inns of
Court will be raised, the number of teaching staff
increased, and fees will rise by 40 per cent.
Lord Diplock, chairman of the council, described
the scheme as a " most exciting step forward ",
and said that for the first time the council would
teach professional skills to a student before he
was called to the Bar.
Higher fees were inevitable, he said, but it was
hoped that the Lord Chancellor's committee on
legai education would recommend assistance for
the council from public funds. If the Government
wanted to maintain an efficient legal profession,
financial assistance would have to be provided.
The council would keep fees within the limits
of local authority grants, Lord Diplock said, and
it was hoped that all Bar students would become
eligible for such grants.
The reforms planned by the council follow
broadly the memorandum of the senate of the
four Inns of Court to the Lord Chancellor's com
mittee published last year (The Times, Novem
ber 4).
The senate envisaged that a Bar student's pre
paration for practice should be divided into two
points: an educational stage, which could be
completed at university, followed by
intensive
training, including study of specialized subjects
such as landlord and tenant and hire-purchase
law, and instruction in advocacy and work in
chambers.
All students admitted after today will be sub
ject to the new scheme, and for existing students
transitional arrangements have been made.
The Society of Labour Lawyers, in a report
published by
the Fabian Society, criticizes the
systems of legal education in both branches of the
profession.
The examinations ignored many areas of social
and professional
importance, according to the
report, and pupillage and articles were inefficient
methods of training. Educational and other facili
ties for Bar students were inadequate, and the
requirement that a student must qualify for the
Bar by keeping terms was often a serious obstacle
to entry to the profession.
Many of the defects of the legal education
system to which the report draws attention are
acknowledged by both sides of the profession.
Indeed, some of the Labour lawyers' proposals
are being implemented under the council's new
plan..
The respective memoranda of the senate and the
Law Society' to the Lord Chancellor's committee
show that the principle of common education for
solicitors and barristers
is generally accepted.
Transfer from one side of the profession to the
other will thus be made easier in the near future,
as urged by the report.
TRAINING FOR THE LAW
THE COUNCIL of Legal Education publishes
today details of a new scheme for the education
of students for the Bar. An outline of the plan
was put forward last November in a memorandum
from the Senate of the Four Inns of Court to the
Lord Chancellor's Committee on Legal Education
and the scheme will now be effective from today
for every new student joining an Inn of Court and
preparing for qualification as a barrister.
Putting the scheme into effect now is particularly
to be welcomed, for the Lord Chancellor's Com
mittee may not report until the middle of next
year and it may then be another year before
its recommendations are accepted and put into
operation. As the council points out, the scheme
is so designed that it can easily be adapted to any
proposals which are forthcoming from the Lord
Chancellor's committee.
The committee is unlikely to disagree in prin
ciple with the current thinking of the Law Society
on Legal Education. Both bodies recognize that it
is desirable that a student should be able to com
plete the first part of his course if possible at
university before he is required to decide whether
he will pursue a career as a barrister or solicitor.
The idea of a common preliminary examination
will help not only the student but also the qualified
lawyer who may choose after some years of prac
tice to transfer from one side of the profession to
the other. At present the mechanics of transference
are unnecessarily difficult.
The Society of Labour Lawyers in a pamphlet
on legal education published at the weekend criti
cizes this and other defects of the present system,
many of which arc acknowledged by the bodies
responsible for legal education. The council's deci
sion
to
teach students professional
techniques
before call also finds support from the Labour
Lawyers. The effect of this innovation combined
with a stiffer final examination should be to pro-
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