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Land law.
The Part II examination consists o fpapers on :
Conveyancing.
J«) Accounts.
Ill ^
CVenue
Equity and Succession.
Ifi! Commercial law.
H) Company law and Partnership.
Either Family law or Magisterial law or Local
Government law.
The non-degree entrant must do a years course for
he Part I examination, and after passing that exam
•jerve under articles for 4 years and then pass the Part
* Examination. The law degree entrant may be ex-
i t e d from any of the subjects in the Part I Examina-
,0
n in which he has obtained a pass in his degree
l ami n a t i on and, subject to taking any outstanding
objects of the Part I Examination may either take the
a r t
II Exam and enter into articles for 2 years, or he
m a
y postpone the Part II Examination until after this
Period of articles. The majority favour the former
c
°urse and are able to enter upon their period of articles
^ith their examinations behind them and are thus able
give uninterrupted attention to their principal's
ysiness and their own office training. There are pro-
v
'sions enabling those who have a degree in a subject
Her than law, mature students with experience in
Her walks of life and legal executives to serve
ortened periods of articles and thus not delay their
Salifications too much.
must face the fact that our profession has
^Nallenges and competition to meet. There is a call
an ever widening legal advisory service. Legal aid
extending and will extend its spheres of work,
^dvice Centres will be required to be manned. There
.
a
n ever growing body of laws and regulations to deal
I h and our entry into Europe will bring many prob-
^Hs to many of us. There is no dearth of competition
V persons able and willing to take over work previously
nsidered to be ours. Tax and estate duty consul-
V
ts
> banks, insurance brokers, merchant banks, cut
'
n
ce conveyancers, etc.
^ ty is not sufficient to consider this subject on the
^
S l s
that we can jog along as we have in the past.
e
must seek to improve. Merely to say that the
ystems of training which have served us in the past
e
necessarily adequate is not good enough. If we
n
improve our training we must do so.
^
Ormrod Committee
. I his state of affairs has been debated, for a long
jHie but little action has resulted. Finally in 1967 the
°
r
d Chancellor set up the Ornirod Committee to
Nsider the whole subject of legal education. The
F ssibifity of carrying out the recommendations of that
£°mmittee which is only now exercising the Law
^>ciety and has been put before the solicitors' branch
the profession in a Consultative Document.
Much evidence was considered by the Ormrod Com-
j t e e , including evidence from The Law Society, and
j,
80
"The Prospective Lawyer, Blue Print for the
u
ture" prepared by the then National Committee of
associate Members received serious consideration. It
a s
a document which followed a very detailed survey
Articles in England and it showed their defects,
of
T
^
r e a t
evidence also, showed the desirability
t>
Universities undertaking their proper role for instruc-
e
°
n
in the law, as they do in other countries, and
V'dence also showed the practicability of teaching
practical skills in an institution. This was already being
done in Canada and Nigeria and it is a matter of
interest that Canada is now proposing to extend this
type of training and abolish articles and that New
South Wales have now established a practical training
course in place of articles, and other Australian States
are following.
The Ormrod Committee published its Report in
March 1971, and I will briefly outline the main effect
of their proposals with regard to the main stream of
entrants to the solicitor's profession. There were also
provisions for graduates in other subjects than law,
those with experience in other walks of life and legal
executives. Briefly the position is that the profession
would wish to receive such entrants and to make their
path as easy as possible.
The Ormrod Course of Training
The Ormrod course of training, consists of three
stages. First, the academic stage, secondly the pro-
fessional stage, comprising both training in an institu-
tion and training in an office, and finally continuing
education or training.
The entrant starts with a degree, then takes a year s
Vocational Course at an institution, and thereafter,
although admitted as a solicitor, he will not be allowed
for two or three years to practise on his own account
or as a partner, so that he will receive office training
under supervision. The implementation of these pro-
posals will effect a great improvement in the education
of our profession.
There are two principles on which the Ormrod Report
was based. First, in the words of the Ormrod Report
"legal education should not attempt to equip the lawyer
every subject he may encounter in practice. Instead it
should concentrate on providing him with the best
possible general introduction so as to enable him with
the help of experience and continuing education after
qualification to become a fully equipped member of
the profession'. And the second principle is inherent in
the firts; namely that education and training is a con-
tinuous process throughout a lawyer's professional life.
The application of these two principles lead to the
acceptance of a limited aim for pre-qualification train-
ing and a realisation of the enormous importance to be
attached to continuing education.
Of what then should the limited pre-qualification
training consist? On the academic side, a Select Com-
mittee of the House of Commons on Legal Education
in 1846, in recommending the setting up of law facul-
ties at Universities, which did not then exist, said of
academic training—"Its chief end is not so much the
acquiring of knowledge as creating and maintaining
the habits of acquiring it. Nor is it less true that a few
subjects well mastered outweigh in real utility many
indifferently or partially attended to." 125 years later
we find the Ormrod Report saying much the same
thing—"The range of the subject matter of the law is
so great that no system of education and training before
qualification could possibly cover the whole of it except
in an utterly superficial and useless manner. The process
of acquiring professional knowledge and skills is con-
tinuous throughout the lawyer's working life." In those
two quotations we find the reasoning which leads to
the conclusion that the first and academic stage in a
lawyer's training should be attendance at a University
where he will receive an intellectual training in the
critical study of the principles of some of the main
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