Welsh legal education: working together, succeeding together

In this article from the Spring 2004 issue of Directions Richard Owen (University of Glamorgan) reports on the Welsh legal education conference held on 14 January 2004.

This first ever conference devoted specifically to Welsh legal education looked at all aspects of post 16 legal education in Wales. Delegates were drawn from many sectors, including higher and further education institutions, schools, professional bodies and private teaching companies.

The purpose of the conference was to set the agenda for further research into Welsh legal education. This will build upon the UKCLE funded Mapping Legal Education in Wales (MaLEW) project and the Cynon Valley research project looking at solicitors’ awareness of the Human Rights Act 1998.

The increasing focus on legal issues that relate specifically to Wales formed a backdrop to the conference. The post devolution settlement has started to see a divergence in educational policy between England and Wales. The Higher Education (Student Support) Bill, which contains provisions to devolve student support for FE and HE students to the National Assembly for Wales, was published a week before the event. The Welsh Assembly Government has said that it will honour its manifesto pledge not to introduce top up fees before 2007 and has established a commission to review the experience of the introduction of top-up fees in England prior to making a decision whether to proceed in Wales.

The Welsh language is another issue that is of particular concern to Wales. The increase in Welsh medium secondary education has not been matched by a similar increase in Welsh medium higher education provision. The Welsh Assembly Government’s Reaching higher strategy includes a target to increase the proportion of students undertaking some course elements through the medium of Welsh from the current figure of 3.4% to 7% by 2010. The conference heard of work being done in the educational sector to achieve the target including the development of Welsh language teaching materials and initiatives to improve students’ proficiency in the core legal educational subjects.

The conference provided a much needed forum for the FE and HE sectors to come together, and UKCLE financed bursaries for the attendance of FE lecturers and schoolteachers facilitated this. The major areas of concern were the inability of schools to provide AS/A level courses due to resourcing constraints, difficulties in providing the full range of options on A level and Institute of Legal Executives courses, again due to resourcing constraints, and varying attitudes by university admissions officers towards A level law.

The gap in AS/A level provision is being met in Wales, to some extent, by the private sector, which is acting in partnership with the schools/FE sector by providing courses that could not otherwise be delivered, as well as locum support. Although it was reported that Welsh law schools do not discriminate against A level law candidates, teachers find it impossible to advise pupils on the desirability of studying A level law prior to undertaking a law degree due to varying preferences being expressed by different institutions across the United Kingdom.

The role of law and legal providers in assisting the economic regeneration of Wales was another theme of the conference. There has been a decline in recent years in the provision of legal services in rural Wales and the industrial valleys concentrated particularly in the Cardiff area. This has led to difficulties in accessing legal services in rural parts of Wales, which causes problems for small businesses and individuals and creates ‘advice deserts’ in certain specialisms, such as employment law. The conference’s keynote speaker, Andrew Davies AM, the Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Economic Development and Transport, outlined the Welsh Assembly Government’s work in this area. The conference also heard plans for Law Society funded research to map out the future for legal services in Wales.

There was also a heartfelt exhortation from the Bar Council to law schools to be more imaginative in applying the Joint statement on qualifying law degrees (PDF file) when designing law degrees, in order to meet the needs of the communities they serve. The conference also provided an opportunity to put current debates on legal education into a specifically Welsh context. A session on the Law Society’s Training Framework Review examined its implications in the light of the prevailing socio-economic conditions in Wales.

The conference proved a useful experience in demonstrating how legal academics and practitioners are able to come together to consider how the law can be fashioned into a tool to underpin the economic development of the region in which they are located. It will be followed by further events and research in Wales and, as devolution extends across the UK, similar events may be held elsewhere.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010