New opportunities, but where's the will (or the money)?

Editorial from the Autumn 2003 issue of Directions examining the need for law teachers to engage with the changing agenda for legal education.

In many ways law schools in the UK have never been better. They are amongst the most popular destinations for school leavers. They achieved a remarkably healthy proportion of Grade 5s in the Research Assessment Exercise. They have made impressive, if patchy, progress in clinical learning, ethical understanding, and virtual learning environments. They are reputed to be relatively cheap to run. They were in the vanguard of benchmarking of higher education. They provide vocational programmes with the most comprehensive preparation for legal practice anywhere in the world (Australia apart perhaps). They furnish a legal profession and judiciary that enjoy international admiration. They are sought by a growing number of overseas students each year. All in all UK legal education’s star is high.

However, the modern curriculum is moving on and law’s influence is growing and fragmenting into new specialisms. There has been an exponential increase in demand for legal expertise in the UK and beyond, with international scarcity further heightening demand. Employers, whether practitioners or other purchasers of legal expertise, seek more diverse combinations of knowledge and skills. Students expect programmes that can suit varied career demands and respond to the complexity of individual learning styles and personal circumstances. Meeting these needs requires new solutions.

It is perhaps surprising therefore that off the pitch in the past year there has been considerable disarray. The professions contrived to insult rather than consult. Law schools reacted rather than reflected. The divisive potential of ‘top-up’ fees to repair serial under-funding still looms. The white paper on the future of higher education has floated models of foundation degrees, Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) and a revised quality enhancement framework, as well as an Academy to promote academic teaching professionalism.

It is doubtful whether law schools are in a position to respond. Firstly, there is little leadership within the legal education community. The last meeting of the Lord Chancellor’s Standing Conference was cancelled, and the reorganisation of the Lord Chancellor’s responsibilities holds little promise for revitalising the marginal remit he has held in the past. The only body that claims responsibility for the law degree – the Joint Academic Stage Board – is the creature of the professions and has no accountable membership from the academy (it has a small minority of individual members, who are legal academics).

Law schools are in poor shape to fill the leadership vacuum, with their heads in the main beleaguered by the weight of managing their departments in the face of increasing regulatory intervention and budgetary delegation from their institutions. Planning their own development (or survival) leaves little room for formulating a strategy for the sector as a whole. Hardly surprising therefore that the Committee of Heads of University Law Schools (CHULS) has barely enough time or resources to attend to the many requests for its collective view, impressive though the stalwart efforts of the new executive and its predecessors have been. It is an unwieldy and under-resourced body to investigate sector-wide perspectives or formulate policy.

It is against this background of considerable individual and collective achievement alongside sectoral doubt and division that the Law Society is currently formulating its policy arising from the Training Framework Review. Initial indications of the scope of the review hold out extensive opportunities for law schools. Following the report in February 2002 by Professors Boon and Webb of Westminster, the Law Society is believed to be considering widespread reform of qualification for admission to the profession (and beyond). This could include multiple pathways to becoming a solicitor, reflecting the varied roles that such legal expertise is called upon to fulfil. The Northumbria model of combined degree and LPC would under such proposals become an early example of a more fundamental mix of full time and part time programmes, where students accumulate the knowledge and skills deemed necessary to earn them the admission to the Rolls. Further, law schools’ influence need not finish upon entry into the profession. Work-based learning within a tighter quality assurance regime delivered by practitioners, alone or in conjunction with law schools, would replace the training contract.

The Law Society has now issued its consultation on proposals for a new approach to qualifying as a solicitor. The success of any new approach will be dependent upon the will and vision of law teachers to grasp its opportunities, however this will to a large extent depend upon the funds available to establish new pathways and the perceived demand for the new programmes. Elsewhere we explore the possibility of additional funding for the undergraduate programme. The assimilation of professional status and academic achievement in law could provide alternative funding opportunities.

Ultimately, however, responsibility for the development of legal education in the UK lies with law teachers. The elite law schools may be slow to accept that the tried and tested formula for law graduates needs reform. Their monopoly of entrants into the more lucrative echelons of practice will only be assailed by the prospect of effective (and cheaper?) alternatives. The Common Professional Examination has provided one such alternative. The next decade may well see many more emerging.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010