Qualified Lawyer Transfer Scheme (QLTS): client-centred assessment of qualified lawyers

contributors | abstract | presentation | biographies

Contributors

Paul Maharg (University of Northumbria)
Mandy Gill (Solicitors Regulation Authority)
Jenny Rawstorne (Solicitors Regulation Authority)

Format

Paper presentation

Abstract

Assessment of professional competence has always been problematic. Should it be assessed by situated assessment and only in the workplace? Can it be assessed outside a workplace environment? Should we be attempting to assess professional competence, or should we focus on professionalism itself? In either case, what do we mean by competence and professionalism? What would an assessment of these qualities actually mean to the assessor and the assessed professional? How should we assess ethical conduct within the assessment? What can we learn from other jurisdictions and other professions as regards these questions and issues?

These were some of the fundamental issues facing a working party tasked to review the Qualifying Law Transfer Test or QLTT, and to create a more client-focused assessment of those lawyers who wish to practise as solicitors in England and Wales. Over a series of meetings the working party planned a new approach to the assessment of qualified lawyers. Assessment guidelines were drawn up for potential providers of the assessment, an assessment provider was chosen by open tender process, and as a result the QLTS will be implemented for the first time early in 2011.

The assessment draws on methods used in medical education and elsewhere, and is based partly on prior research carried out on Standardized Clients (Barton, Cunningham, Jones & Maharg, 2006). It is our hypothesis that the architecture of the assessment, focused primarily on professional lawyers, is flexible and powerful enough to be used not merely at the professional stage of legal education, but (following the general direction of medical curricula) in the undergraduate stage as well. These and other assessment issues will be discussed by some of those involved in the process of researching and designing the basic assessment process.

In this session we shall:

1. Define and analyse basic issues in the assessment of working professionals.
2. Outline the regulatory issues facing the SRA working party, and the new approach taken by it.
3. Summarise the architecture of the assessment and detail its genealogy in the assessment practices of other professions.
4. Describe how the assessment will be implemented.
5. Summarise the implications of this approach for assessment of outcomes-based education at undergraduate and postgraduate stages of legal education.
6. Outline the legal research programme that will be undertaken on the process and content of the QLTS assessment.

Presentation

Short biographies of panel members

Mandy Gill is a consultant with the Education and Training Unit at the Solicitors Regulation Authority. She has worked in the delivery of legal education in a variety of institutions and in policy and regulation of legal education during 2001-2004 and again since January 2010. She is a member of the team which has shaped and defined the assessment requirements for the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme which launched in September 2010 and the first assessments for which will be available from January 2011.

Paul Maharg is Professor of Legal Education in the School of Law, University of Northumbria. He was Director of the two-year, JISC/UKCLE-funded project, SIMPLE (SIMulated Professional Learning Environment – http://simplecommunity.org). Paul is the author of Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-first Century (2007, Ashgate Publishing, www.transforming.org.uk), editor of and contributor to Digital Games and Learning (2010, in press, Continuum Publishers), and has published widely in the fields of legal education and professional learning design. His specialisms include interdisciplinary educational design, and the use of ICT at all levels of legal education. He was appointed a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Fellow of the RSA (www.thersa.org). He blogs at http://zeugma.typepad.com.

Jenny Rawstorne is the Policy Executive in the Education and Training Unit at the Solicitors Regulation Authority with overall responsibility for the review and implementation of the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme in September 2010. She is a solicitor and has worked in legal education policy for the Law Society and more recently the SRA.

Last Modified: 16 February 2011