Responding to the Legal Services Board’s approval of the framework for changes to how solicitors are admitted to the profession, employers and education suppliers are being urged to push ahead with their preparations for the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). The SQE, which will not come in before September 2020, will involve a…
Making CLE Voluntary and Pro Bono Mandatory: A Law Faculty Test Case
The vast majority of attorneys in the US are required to complete 10 to 15 hours of continuing legal education (“CLE”) every year, an experience well summarized by one attendee’s observation that “[k]nowledge is good, but coerced seat time is wasteful [and] insulting.” The primary rationale for mandatory CLE is to help ensure competent client…
The Shifting Frontiers of Law: Access to Justice and Underemployment in the Legal Profession
The article examines two interrelated issues attracting attention from the legal academy, the profession, and policy makers: i) the crisis of access to justice among ordinary Canadians, and ii) the increasing number of qualified and underemployed lawyers. This article sets out to understand the interrelated factors underlying these two trends, and explores long-term, accessible solutions to address the misalignment between the supply of underemployed law graduates and a demand for affordable legal services. In response to these twin problems, we examine how legislative reform,…
The Twenty-First Century Delivery of Legal Services: Thoughts for Legal Education
The twenty-first century lawyer will face rapid and unsettling changes in the way legal services are delivered. Legal futurists foresee many aspects of legal services being delivered more efficiently with the use of technology. For example, future breakthroughs in artificial intelligence may expand the ability to automate many tasks that currently require the skill of…
Quality assurance and standards in legal services – professional competence, advocacy standards and consumer protection
Morning, Wednesday, 29th November 2017, Sixty One Whitehall, London SW1A 2ET This seminar will focus on the priorities for ensuring quality and upholding standards in the legal sector. It is timed to consider next steps for the implementation of the recommendations within the Competition and Markets Authority’s legal services market study – which found that the market was not…
Access to Justice: Looking Back, Thinking Ahead
This Article seeks to assess our progress and reassess our goals concerning access to justice. It begins in Part I by summarizing the nature of the challenge. Although there is much we do not know about the scope of the problem, the data available suggest a shameful inadequacy of services for the poor and a…
BA2020 consultation: The Netherlands Bar
The Netherlands Bar (Nederlandse orde van advocaten, NOvA) is consulting on the future of professional education and training for lawyers. Currently, in order to qualify to practise law in the Netherlands, an individual must have 1) a Bachelor’s degree in legal studies, 2) a Master’s degree in Dutch law 3) have completed three years of…
Reform in Legal Education and Training in Hong Kong
In the article which follows, Heidi Chu, Secretary General of The Law Society of Hong Kong kindly provides us with an overview of the ‘state of play’ of legal education and training reform in Hong Kong. The present system of legal education and training in Hong Kong involves three stages, namely: an academic stage (a qualifying…
The new route to qualification as a solicitor: the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)
In April 2017, the SRA announced that it would be introducing a new national licensing exam for those wishing to be admitted as solicitors of England and Wales, the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, or the SQE. Where did this idea come from? And why is reform necessary? What is the current system for qualification as a…
The Women and Men of Harvard Law School: Preliminary Results from the HLS Career Study
The Preliminary Report presents the results of the Harvard Law School Career Study (HLSCS), conducted by the school’s Center on the Legal Profession (CLP). Begun with a generous grant from a group of women alumnae in connection with the 55th celebration of the graduation of the school’s first female students in 1953, the study seeks…