Legal Education in the United Kingdom
Roger Burridge, School of Law,
University of Warwick, United Kingdom
· Key Characteristics
· 3 separate jurisdictions – England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
· Common law system
· European assimilation
· Division between academic and vocational stages
· Rapid growth of undergraduate study of law in past 10 years
· Reforms of legal services affecting lawyer demand and professional identity
· Technological development in delivery process
· Reform of learning and teaching methods, quality control, and access affecting higher education
· Global law markets, democratisation and development
There are three separate jurisdictions within the UK - England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. All three are based upon the common law system. The UK is also a member state of the European Union and subject to European law. Whilst the UK does not have a written constitution, the Human Rights Act 1999 incorporates in UK law the European Convention on Human Rights.
The legal education systems of the three jurisdictions in the UK involve two pre-qualification stages- the Academic stage and the Vocational stage. This background describes the system in England and Wales. The approach to legal education is very similar in the other jurisdictions, although each has its own distinctive characteristics.
The undergraduate law degree is the most common form of entry into the legal profession, followed by a one year professional course and examination (the professional stage). This bifurcation of legal study has resulted in the development of undergraduate programmes which largely concentrate upon the analysis of legal texts and the identification of legal principles, whilst the Vocational stage has more recently turned its attentions to the knowledge, skills and competencies that practising lawyers require.
The Academic stage usually consists of an undergraduate degree which is offered in 89 UK universities. The majority of programmes, commonly leading to a Bachelor of Laws or a Bachelor of Arts, joint honours degree, last 3 years. The study of law at undergraduate level marks a significant difference to the US where law is a postgraduate discipline. Law students in the UK are therefore younger and have studied less than their colleagues in the US when they enter law school. There are about 33,000 full time law students and some 7,500 part time law students. Entry from schools to higher education is through a centralised admissions process and is dependent upon grades achieved in secondary schools (high school) exams. Most law schools make offers to school students dependent upon their achieving a number of points or grades in these exams. Only a few law schools interview candidates before admission and some Oxford and Cambridge Colleges also set entrance exams. There is not an LSAT or similar.
Higher education in the UK is undergoing profound changes following a widespread government review. The government’s declared objective is to achieve 45% of school leavers entering higher education or 500,000 extra students by 2020.
A minimum number and duration of modules or courses is now prescribed as necessary for the award of an honours or pass degree, and university programmes are being designated in such a way that modules can be accumulated over a period of time (and in future possibly in different institutions) so that a student can qualify for the award of a degree other than by pursuing a continuous and regular period of study.
Law teaching in universities is influenced by two main concerns – the legal profession and the government’s higher education policy. The two branches of the legal profession - barristers and solicitors – have sought over the last century to protect their markets, including the training of their members, as well as jointly to influence the content and quality of the programmes of law degrees. The professions have agreed a Joint Statement on the minimum requisites of a law degree in order to enable any student to gain admission to the Vocational stage.
Although today only about 45% of law graduates will enter the professions, most will study the required subjects leading to ‘exemption’ from the study of exams prescribed by the professions. The alternative route to qualification is to take a one-year conversion course or Common Professional Examination (CPE) having first obtained an undergraduate degree in another discipline. This is offered by a small number of universities that provide a postgraduate one year Diploma in the core law subjects prescribed by the professions for entry into the Vocational stage. Many City firms actively seek CPE students, and the proportion of non-law graduates entering the professions continues to grow.
Law schools or faculties set their own syllabus within the constraints of the Joint Statement and the charter or constitution of their university. A typical law degree lasts 3 years and each year is divided into two semesters of 12 to 15 weeks or three terms of 10 to 12 weeks, depending on your university. Typically a student would take four full subjects, or 8 half subjects or modules, each year.
In order to fulfill the requirements of the Joint Statement of the professions the core subjects studied during a law degree will include such subjects as:
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Contract |
Constitutional & Administrative |
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Tort |
Legal system |
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Land or property |
European |
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Trusts |
Criminal |
Students will also be able to select optional modules or courses dependent upon the alternatives offered by the School. Typically a graduate will have taken the equivalent of 12 whole courses (lasting 2 semesters or over 3 terms) or 24 modules in the same period. Jurisprudence or legal theory is an option offered by nearly all law schools and such a subject is compulsory at some. French, German, Japanese, and the laws and legal systems of other nations are popular options or electives. A small number of law schools still teach Roman Law. A widespread but demanding option in a number of law schools is the European law degree, usually lasting 4 years and incorporating a year of study in another European country. Joint or mixed degrees have grown in popularity in recent years. Law and business, law and French, German or other language are popular mixed degrees.
The law degree in UK has recently participated in a government initiative – Benchmarking - aimed at identifying the constituent elements to be included in all law degrees. The articulation of the minimum attainment to achieve a bare Pass in an undergraduate law programme has not yet been officially adopted. The Benchmarking Statement however represents a major step forward in identifying the subjects and skills which are now broadly accepted as the appropriate descriptors of the law graduate.
After graduation those students wishing to practice law must select one of the two professions and apply for entry. These programmes place a strong emphasis upon the practical skills that lawyers require.
Solicitors
The Law Society, the professional body representing solicitors, requires those who wish to qualify to join a Legal Practice Course. If they successfully pass this they will have to obtain a Training Contract from a solicitors’ firm which will provide two further years training, before a successful law student is finally ‘admitted as a solicitor’ or entered on the Roll of Solicitors. The Law Society has franchised about 10 university institutions and two private education institutions to provide the course which it supervises closely. The Legal Practice Course (LPC) lasts one academic year and costs on average about 7,000 pounds for fees.
The LPC involves the compulsory study of some substantive subjects, accounts, taxation, company law, and professional conduct. The skills of interviewing, drafting, and negotiation are also studied and examined.
The larger city firms sponsor their recruits during the LPC, but those students who do not obtain a Training Contract have to fund the course themselves with no guarantee of employment afterwards.
Upon successfully completing the LPC a Trainee Solicitor enters a firm and continues on the job training for a further two years. This period includes formal training in advocacy.
Thereafter all solicitors are obliged to continue compulsory professional development (CPD), which can be achieved by obtaining credit for attending accredited courses which update legal knowledge or procedure or otherwise inform the practice of law.
Barristers
The General Council of the Bar has franchised a one year programme and examination for those wishing to become barristers. Called the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) it was introduced in 1989 to emphasise the practising skills required for court work. The course utilises practical exercises for the DRAIN competencies (Drafting, Research, Advocacy, Interviewing and Negotiation), and its early development owed much to North American experiences, especially Canada.
In addition to practical skills classes, substantive courses in crime, common law, and taxation are taught as well as civil and criminal procedure. Different institutions evolve their own programmes and assessment methods. Performance assessment in the skills areas and multiple choice tests for testing detailed knowledge of procedural rules have been adopted by most, if not all, institutions. Providers of the BVC are increasingly those institutions which also provide the LPC, suggesting the potential for the eventual amalgamation of the two programmes.
Upon successfully passing the Bar exams, a student can be called to the Bar by her/his Inn of Court. All those wishing to become barristers have to join one of the four Inns of Court (Gray’s Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple or Lincoln’s Inn), which basically involves paying a membership fee and eating a number of compulsory dinners.
Call to the Bar however does not entitle a barrister to practice and s/he must then complete a further 12 months ‘pupillage’ in a group of barristers’ offices or ‘set of chambers’. A pupil in the first six months of pupillage will be assigned to an experienced barrister. The system is intended to introduce the novice to the forms and procedures that constitute a barrister’s work. There is at present no formal structure to this but efforts are being made by the Bar Council to ensure that all pupils receive an adequate standard of training. During the ‘second six months’ a barrister can appear in court, but is technically still under the supervision of a more experienced barrister. Thereafter a barrister wishing to practice on her own account must find a ‘set of chambers’ to join as a ‘tenant’.
The biggest hurdles for trainee barristers are obtaining a pupillage and finding a ‘tenancy’. There is a restricted number of vacancies each year for pupils and far more students pass the exams than there are pupillages. There are still fewer tenancies available and as a consequence each year many more barristers qualify than are needed to practice in the courts. Many find employment in corporations, government, or court administration.
The main currents affecting legal education have flowed from higher education policy, although government efforts to modernise legal services are also affecting both the content of legal education and prospects for law students.
A recent government initiative has
been the establishment of 24 subject centres to promote good practice in higher
education (the universities). The law
subject centre, the United Kingdom Centre for Legal Education, is based at
Warwick University. It provides
support, guidance and analysis for law school staff as well as publishing
manuals on topics such as how to teach legal research, effective assessment
practices, large group teaching and performance assessment. It is developing a
web site on legal education (www.ukcle.ac.uk) and will be holding a series of
workshops nationally on technology innovations in law teaching. It is
indicative of the influences that law is experiencing as part of the higher
education system in the UK, a movement that has also seen the establishment of
a national Institute for Learning and Teaching, which will accredit the
training programmes that all future teachers in higher education will have to
join – and pass.
In 1970 some 1500 students graduated from 22 law schools in universities. Today the number of law graduates is nearer 10,000 per annum and law is taught in 89 universities and 36 other institutions. Average classes have grown from a range of between 50 and 150 to between about 100 and 250, although precise figures with the various degrees offered within one institution are hard to come by. Such growth in the absence of a proportionate increase in staff resources has inevitably changed the methods of teaching and the organisation of the curriculum.
Membership of the European Union has broadened the horizons of both the students and the law schools. The Erasmus programme has resulted in large numbers of students in all disciplines taking part of their degree programme in another European country. In many law schools overseas students form a significant proportion of the undergraduate and postgraduate populations (and income), to the extent that .increasingly law schools provide programmes with an international rather then merely European focus.
The effect of new technologies upon the delivery of legal education (as upon the nature of law itself) are probably only beginning to be felt. Intranets, CAL and distance learning packages are ever increasing and whilst they are common they are still not the norm throughout all courses in all universities. Copyright laws are having as much influence on the paper based law school as is technology so far.
Higher education has devoted much energy and considerable funding to quality assurance. Wholesale review of all university courses and peer evaluation of both teaching and research has been introduced by successive governments. Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) and Research Assessment Exercises (RAE) are about to enter their second phase. Funding implications (as well as popularity ratings) accompany both, and are structurally creating a division between elite research led universities and lower resources teaching universities. These distinctions are being adopted by the elite law firms in their recruitment practices, creating a further division in the access of minority groups to the pinnacles of the profession.
There are currently some 70,000 solicitors and 9,000 barristers in England and Wales. The relative numbers and actual jobs of each in the coming years can be expected to change as the funding of legal services and the reform of access to justice policies bring the two professions under increasing financial pressure at the citizen-service end of the market.
This process will be speeded along as a result of the European Lawyers Establishment Directive, which from March 2000 allows European lawyers from one member state to establish themselves in another member state. It has become increasingly easier for lawyers to cross jurisdictions in Europe since a Directive in 1991 required professional bodies facilitate re-qualification in other countries.
These processes provide both opportunities and obstacles for the development of legal education in the UK which has historically established itself as a sub discipline of law. Emphasis upon experiential teaching methods has enabled arguments in favour of clinically based courses to enjoy new favour, but the pressure of numbers works in the opposite direction. The Vocational programmes have widened perspectives in teaching and training, but old divisions die hard and it may be some years before the significance of law as an active discipline is fully appreciated in the academic stage.
The present government’s determination to ‘modernise justice’ and reform legal services may yet have the most impact upon legal education. The erosion of the distinction between the two professions can be expected to continue and probably increase its pace, but an enforced merger is unlikely to be imposed in a single dramatic move. Other monopolies may also be removed, creating new opportunities for law jobs and emerging para-legal professions.
All of this however is unlikely to be dictated by the interests that currently provide the leverages for change in UK legal education. The global market for higher education, the international demands for corporate legal services and the world wide concern for universal human rights will ultimately be the arbiters of what constitutes European legal education in the coming century.