More imagination, less dogma: the role of the LLB

In this editorial from the Autumn 2004 issue of Directions Roger Burridge, then UKCLE Director, reflects on the continuing debate over the role of the LLB in legal education.

Few jurisdictions, including the US, contemplate their legal education more than the UK. The unique UK mix of academic study and practical training arguably offers the most comprehensive and thorough grounding in principles, practice and process of any modern legal system. Or it did. The global allure of the UK LLB is fading, in spite of the continuing growth in overall admissions. Partially this is due to the developments in vocational education that have been accomplished in Australia, for example, and to improvements in higher education in Asia and elsewhere.

It could also be argued that here in the UK we have not seized opportunities to keep pace with either national or international developments. Such a thesis needs first to identify the considerable achievements that have occurred. These include the impressive legacy of a higher education system that evolved over many years into a rich source of jurisprudence and doctrinal wisdom. The last 15 years have seen the transformation of vocational programmes, which can now compete with professional training programmes anywhere, in spite of serious under-investment in enthusiasm from some sectors of the profession. The professions should be encouraged in the Training Framework Review and the Bar Vocational Course Review to build upon the success of their respective programmes.

It is the Academic Stage however that currently seems to excite most interest. Criticism is often simplistic and invariably unsupported by research or analysis. Such evidence as there is (Research Assessment Exercise, Quality Assurance Agency reports, graduation results, employment levels) confirms the success of law degrees. High numbers of applications and constant demand for graduates mask massive differences in graduate experience, however, and historic popularity does not necessarily mean that the law degree in its present form meets the varied needs of local, regional, national and international students. Nor should better exam results or supportive student evaluations be interpreted to conclude that there is no room for improvement.

Indeed there are strong indications that the traditional LLB is an endangered species. There is an alternative route to qualification has long been eroding the primacy of the LLB. This is now reflected in the much vaunted statistic (we could not find its source) that over 50% of recruits to the Law Society (or is it City firms?) no longer have a law degree but have qualified via the CPE/GDL route. This may not be significant for those who have no interest in the future careers of their students, but is arguably a more serious problem if university applicants get the idea that a law degree is not much more use than an A level so far as a professional career is concerned; and that a degree in economics, biology, history or politics is a better preparation for practice – bearing in mind that a larger majority of law graduates still enter law school with the hope of becoming a practitioner, even if the overall proportion of graduates no longer does so.

Employability however is not the main issue or at least not in the sense of ‘preparation for practice’. The real issue is the damage that is being done to undergraduate education by a mischievous appeal to a long lost ideal of liberal education. Those who cling to Cardinal Newman as a champion of liberalism may need to be reminded that his idea of a university was to withstand the secularisation of education. The Cardinal wished to retain the centrality of Christianity in higher education. The insistence that any mention of legal practice in the undergraduate programme is an unforgivable capitulation to the Law Society and the Bar is a massive obstacle to our students’ understanding of law and how it works, let alone an affront to most of their aspirations.

Other disciplines are eagerly searching ways to make their teaching more relevant and effective by engaging their students beyond the lecture and seminar discussion format. Law abounds with such possibilities – mooting, work based learning (placements), simulations and role plays. Many of today’s law teachers have grown up with memories of the unacceptable face of law lecturing. Yet it is still the overwhelming medium for passing down knowledge.

That is not to say that the proponents of the liberal degree are wrong to assert the dangers of technocraticism or the need to maintain institutional autonomy over the programmes that universities provide. The problem however is not that a rather narrow version of the liberal law degree needs to be defended, but that in all but the most sought after law schools, that model has already been abandoned. Creativity and philosophical discourse are not the norm in many law schools. The syllabus is just too crowded to afford much more than a few innovative sessions or non-traditional assessments. It will be surprising if the forthcoming UK Law Schools Survey reveals an upsurge in legal theory or jurisprudence classes.

The absence of more imaginative experiential learning sessions, or ethics, justice and the sociology of lawyers, is not the exclusive responsibility of law schools. Blame to a considerable extent has to be shared between the funding councils (myopia), the VCs (greed and caution), and the professions (lack of vision and leadership). Successive governments have also failed to appreciate the international and developmental significance of legal education and left it to drift between the Departments for Education and Science and Constitutional Affairs.

The shortcomings of others do not absolve academics from all blame. We have failed to organise ourselves and present a united front. We have not made use of our strongest resources – research, analysis, contextual understanding and theoretical insight – to argue a better case. We have been as a body dogmatic in our approach to alternatives.

Resistance to the idea of development is the worst sort of conservatism. Such fogeyism is also dangerous since there are powerful and meritorious arguments to be made. Alternative configurations of the curriculum could be more challenging, effective and (perish the thought) enjoyable than what is now a fairly staple offering of core subjects in a largely lecture and seminar based format. Problem-based learning is still a rarity. Whilst there are outstanding examples of virtual learning environments (Strathclyde), clinics (Kent and Northumbria), and research led teaching (Sheffield), these are still the exception. Concerted efforts for re-banding supported by the professions if successful would provide funds for the wholesale adoption of such initiatives and new ones.

There are also some dangerous ideas about that will not be countered unless some of the shibboleths of the conventional approach are at least modified. The professions have their own battles to wage. Unless they are convinced that law degrees provide the development of critical analysis, legal reasoning and contextual understanding of the background to legal practice that most of us claim, they are unlikely to support the continuation for the qualifying law degree in its present form. This is particularly so if the government argues that professional knowledge and expertise are a luxury that many sectors of legal practice need not afford. Whether or not this would be a bad thing is debatable, but it would certainly be a disaster for those law schools who currently recruit on the basis that their graduates at least have a chance of practice, however remote that possibility may become.

There is little sympathy at large for a position that supports the right of legal academics to teach what they like, irrespective of student, institution or market influence. Individual academics may rightly seek work in fields that interest them and hope to find institutions that share their aspirations.

It is the antipathy of academic freedom and an affront to common sense however to expect that all legal academics should subscribe to any particular role or approach. Law has become too significant a social and economic force to cling to curriculum models that were designed halfway through the last century. The danger is that unless the dogmatic opposition to development is modified to acknowledge fresh ideas and perspectives the technocratic way could take over. The Clementi Review could presage a move away from expensive and mind stimulating law degrees in favour of technical vocational competency. Such reforms would not be imposed upon law schools. In such a future, they would gradually wither away and be replaced by deregulated ‘private’ providers. The Training Framework Review would be the basis for such entrepreneurialism.

Being good is not enough. One of the stronger arguments for insisting upon the maintenance and even reassertion of the LLB is that degree level study would ensure that practitioners have a grounding in ethical and philosophical as well as legal reasoning. A well structured law degree can provide this more effectively, thoroughly and economically than studying another subject and then taking a conversion course. Law schools, along with and not in spite of, the professions need to reconstitute Newman’s idea of a liberal law degree. If they do so, and if, courtesy of CHULS and our professional associations, they can agree a more imaginative and effective strategy, the UK law degree could grow in national and international reputation. If disdain for legal practice in the undergraduate curriculum is replaced by reflection, analysis and informed critique of legal process, ethics and legal work, then students, society and the embattled concept ‘justice’ will be the beneficiaries.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010