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Ashford, C --- "Legal Education and the Academic-Commercial Nexus" [2004] LegEdDig 23; (2004) 12(4) Legal Education Digest 9

Legal Education and the Academic-Commercial Nexus

C Ashford

[2004] LegEdDig 23; (2004) 12(4) Legal Education Digest 9

38 Law Teacher 1, 2003, pp 80–92

Student finance is changing and with it the face of legal education. The launch of the UK government’s white paper ‘The Future of Higher Education’ signalled a significant deepening of the Government’s commitment to increased ‘charging’ within Higher Education (HE) and almost perversely, a determination to widen access to HE.

The UK government has set itself the target of continuing to increase participation in HE towards 50 percent of those aged 18–30, mainly through two-year work-focused degrees. As these changes are implemented, the dynamics of the relationship between practice, HE and Further Education (FE) will no doubt change too. It is within that context that this article will seek to review how practice has responded to changes in the last 15 years to legal education, and how legal education is working in practice, together with an exploration of the opportunities for HE and FE that are created by an ever closer nexus between academia and solicitors. This article will also consider a new and emerging route into the legal profession that becomes apparent as part of this closer nexus.

The response of practice to these modern challenges has been increasingly to incorporate legal education into the practice environment itself. Indeed, since the late 1980s we have witnessed the proliferation of legal education courses and the rise of the in-house trainer leading to the continuing development and training of staff at all levels from clerks through to partners. It may perhaps be overly simplistic to state that ‘the rise of the in-house trainer’ can be entirely put down to dissatisfaction with the training/education received externally. Indeed, the vocational versus liberal education discussion continues to dominate any debate concerning legal education.

In seeking to address this relatively new agenda of legal education within practice, there are a number of options open to a firm. It may take the traditional route of employing what have been termed ‘Professional Support Lawyers’ offering specialised training to its fee earning base and in some cases, support staff too.

In contrast to this traditional approach there seems to have been a growth in the number of Legal Education Officers (LEO). Training delivery is perhaps the clearest similarity with the HE Sector. Many training sessions would not look out of place within an academic setting, consisting of traditional lectures and seminar discussion, group participation, and the use of ‘one on one’ mentoring. Moreover, training administration is a component that can vary from one firm setting to the next as the degree of administrative support an LEO can expect could vary from significant to none. Legal research is perhaps the final aspect. This is research with a clear purpose.

The research goals here are primarily those of the firms and thus are business led, informed by the firm’s business plan and strategy or simply the ‘political might’ of a particular area of practice. This is perhaps not a revolutionary notion for academics both in the FE and HE sectors who increasingly have to justify expenditure and conference attendances on ‘business need’ grounds. Given the infrastructure already in place in many law firms in relation to legal education and the increasing financial pressure placed upon students, a form of ‘modern legal apprenticeship’ (MLA) perhaps represents one way forward in legal education.

The financial appeal for an individual considering higher education and a career as a solicitor is clear, yet the MLA alternative to the traditional qualifying route also holds a number of attractive qualities for a law firm, offering the opportunity to actively ‘mould’ employees and future trainees and also allowing them to monitor and ‘add to’ the academic route that seems to receive ever greater criticism from sections of the profession.

The introduction of a MLA model would appear to be in line with the government’s own broad higher education aims. The benefits of such a commercial relationship are clear: income generation, the benefit of practitioners visiting to deliver lectures and seminars, sponsorship for extra-curricular activities to name but a few.

Both new and old universities seem to have recognised the opportunities available to them, particularly with regard to income generation, with a number of old universities applying for part-time Masters Degrees and Diploma courses accredited for Continuing Professional Development (CPD). However, there are perhaps five principal considerations that need to be taken into account by HE and FE institutions when considering the development of one’s CPD provision for practice.

First, the quality of the speaker. This is perhaps the most obvious consideration, covering a combination of quality, relevance, pitch and cost. Second, the subject for the session must be of relevance to practitioners. Third, the delivery of the session must be designed at the right level; those who fail to produce relevant, up–to-date, high-quality material should expect to experience the natural consequences of such an approach. Fourth, what is perhaps the most difficult to balance: the old adage ‘time is money’ has never been truer. The final consideration is the cost of a session.

Perhaps the most obvious form of these ‘non-qualification’ courses would be ‘Priority Area Courses’, dealing with certain subjects which the Law Society from time to time deem to be ‘priority areas’. Ultimately, the commercial market will choose the winners and losers in this area, and thus a successful ‘commercial’ institution must act and promote itself more as a ‘business’ than a university if it wishes to succeed in this market. In addition to the above courses, there remain a number of other opportunities for developing links between HE and practice which can be both income generating and cost neutral.

In many respects the debate as to whether legal education’s direction should be liberal or vocational has become largely ‘academic’. Yet, at the same time there remain considerable areas of legal education within practice that need to be explored and researched. At a time when the nexus between academia and the legal profession is more apparent than ever and when ever more legal education is taking place in practice, then it is crucial an exploration of this field takes place. Few in practice would want to see the end of the existing training contract model and the traditional academic stage.


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