Education generation

Liz Campbell and Neil Stevenson, Director and Deputy Director of the Society's Education and Training Department, talk about the constantly changing environment in which they work

The Journal, June 2004, page 46

“I’d say the work of the department encapsulates the Law Society’s role in miniature, because I feel we have a regulatory function plus a membership services function.” So claims Director of Education and Training Liz Campbell, summing up her remit.

Curious, then, that this is one department of the Society with no solicitors on its staff. Liz herself, who joined the Society 14 years ago and has directed the department for three and a half years, has a background in education administration, describing herself as: “a manager of projects with some educational knowledge; certainly not any kind of legal expert”. Neil Stevenson, her recently appointed deputy, took an LLB but worked most recently in NHS education, where one project involved comparing doctors’ and lawyers’ training. Two managers, two senior administrators and two in admin support complete the team.

Naturally the department has its attendant committee, or two as it happens – Admissions, dealing with the relevant regulations and any requests for waiver or variation; and Education and Training, a policy committee including academic members which keeps matters such as the Diploma under review. Not that Liz sees any real demarcation in the work: “I see my department as part of the committees and the committees as part of the department.”

Back to school

Indeed Liz describes the department as educational rather than legal. Its remit extends only up to the point of qualification, including lawyers from England or abroad seeking dual qualification or registration – post-qualifying education is handled elsewhere – and increasingly involves liaison with schools, both in careers advice and supporting other initiatives like the Scottish Schools Law Project and, as Neil points out, the “Young Citizen’s Passport”. Due to be launched on 8 June in conjunction with the Citizenship Foundation and Hodder Gibson, this is a little handbook, intended for school leavers, packed with information about how the law affects them and how they interact with it.

“We’re now much more proactive in what we do with careers advice and we try to visit schools and talk to people about the realities of life in the legal profession.” Given the competition for diploma places and then traineeships, “We have to strike a fine balance between encouraging people with the potential to make really good solicitors still to consider law as a career option but being realistic about their prospects once they have their LLB.”

Support from local solicitors is valuable – “We put on a number of careers  events where legal academics come and talk about the degree and diploma, recently qualified solicitors talk about the traineeship and solicitors from different areas of practice give a flavour of what life is like, I suppose to counteract what they have seen on television where they all think it’s like Ally McBeal or Kavanagh QC.”

The Scottish Schools Law  Project has been good for the profession’s image. “Basically Patrick Gaffney takes the credit for that because it was his initiative, but firms have been really supportive too. We helped publicise it, we hosted the launch here and it’s such a simple idea that really has taken off and the feedback has been incredibly positive. We’ve tried to push it, obviously the firms make the decision whether they are going to be involved, but I think that word about it has spread to quite an extent now. It’s really catching on and is a prime example of the Society working together with others to promote legal issues to potential solicitors.”

“Hands off” the LLB

At undergraduate level, the Society remains the accreditation body for LLB – four more universities were approved a couple of years ago – but provided they offer teaching in the core subject areas equivalent to the Society’s own exams, “we allow them a very free hand in how they deliver those. We don’t prescribe how they are taught or the length of course that meets that requirement. And the reason we’re fairly hands off is that about half of all LLB graduates now go on to pursue alternative careers.”

“Our main influence and our main interest comes at the Diploma stage and there we work very closely with the universities.” After a lengthy review a much more skills-based Diploma was introduced in 2000 and its success in meeting the current needs of the profession is now under further scrutiny. “We have a Diploma Project Board looking at the issues of the Diploma and in tandem with that the Diploma Co-ordinating Committee has been meeting with the authors and senior tutors to realign the materials and make them much more standard, much more fit for their purpose.”

Here again the Society has increased its level of contact at “consumer” level, apparently with positive results – but Liz sees plenty of scope for more. “I would like to see us introduce a Society newsletter for Diploma students so we have a much closer interaction with the student body and create a positive attitude towards the Society before they start their traineeships. We already have a much closer linkage with Diploma students than we used to; we go out and speak to them a couple of times a year, and every time they indicate they’d like to hear more from us and hear earlier so they can make much more informed choices about their careers. Now that we’ve got the extra resource in Neil there will be more time to develop new initiatives rather than just running to stand still.”

Keeping tabs on traineeships

And so to the traineeship. Here in recent times there has been a near exact equivalence between numbers of Diploma graduates and training places on offer, though with an extra 50-60 Diploma places available this year Liz doubts that the number of traineeships will expand in line. Difficulties in persuading intending solicitors to work outwith the cities are well known, as is the reluctance of some smaller firms to take on a trainee. “One of the things we’re aiming to do in the department, working with the Education and Training Committee is to speak to firms in more rural areas about the benefits of taking a trainee so they’re not focused exclusively on the cost but start thinking of trainees as a resource.”

Long gone are the days when training had to cover conveyancing, court work and trusts. Recognising that firms such as the biggest five training practices, who account for around 38% of all trainees, will offer a very different training from that in smaller firms, the Society doesn’t seek to regulate the traineeship as such. Instead, through recent developments such as the logbook and quarterly performance reviews, “What we try to ensure through the logbook system is that all trainees get a breadth of experience within the scope of the work that the practice has. … And what we’re looking to assess through the quarterly performance reviews is that the trainee has acquired various skills in legal practice rather than knowledge in specific legal practice areas. So we’re looking at their communication skills, their ability to draft and to deal with clients and to work well within the firm’s office procedures. We’re looking for a progression through the two years. And because we’re looking at a skills based assessment, those skills should be portable between different departments.” With over 400 trainees taking up contracts each year, that is a considerable commitment. Accreditation of the Professional Competence Course providers and ensuring that trainees complete the course is also part of the department’s remit.

While complaints from trainees such as that they just do the photocopying have not been entirely eliminated, they can at least be identified early on. “Obviously there are some traineeships where things are not going well. However the review system has meant that if there is disagreement between a firm and a trainee, there is written documentation – it is no longer the trainee saying something and the firm saying something else. Any problems will have been flagged up to us at an early stage and we will have spoken to the firm and the trainee about what they are going to do to address the situation.

“Like any new system it’s taken time to bed down and we’re dealing with a number of queries about its operation. However one of the positive things we’ve done in the department is to organise a series of ‘Training the Trainers’ seminars, which are voluntary but anybody with a trainee has been able to come along and hear us explain the operation of the review system, the admin processes and what’s required there. We also have an experienced trainer along to talk to delegates about how they appraise, how to set objectives, how to review performance and so on, and we’ve certainly had very positive feedback on all of those and we’ll run them again. And it’s good free CPD for the solicitors who come to them!”

Back to first principles

Liz feels that the department has been spread a bit thinly, but Neil’s arrival will allow them to take forward new initiatives. He has three main roles, to build links with groups such as the Scottish Paralegals Association and the Scottish Young Lawyers Association, accreditation of LLB and Diploma providers, and a wider brief, as he puts it, “looking at the Diversity remit of the Society (in relation to gender, race, age, disability etc) in terms of how we provide services to the profession like the Client Relations Office work and also trying to promote diversity issues within the profession as a whole”.

One project the profession is set to hear more of very shortly is a substantial “Foundation Document” through which, says Liz, the Society aims to bring a greater coherence to the three stages of professional qualification. “It will set down the principles underlying education and training. It goes much wider than education: it has a number of statements underpinning core values of the legal profession” – hence it went before the May Council meeting for approval before its release, due this month. Or as Neil puts it: “It’s just taking that opportunity to look at the bigger picture instead of always focusing on individual units or individual pressures or on a part of the diploma or LLB at any one time.”

Independent learning logs are being introduced across universities in all undergraduate programmes. Ideally, the Society would like to see that carried through the Diploma and traineeship and carried through the professional career as part of the CPD process.

Three times a year the department has its big day, the admissions ceremony which Liz is anxious we don’t overlook. “When new solicitors can come along, receive their admission certificates from the President and be congratulated on entering the profession, I think it has a real feelgood factor about it because it’s the culmination of all their efforts and in some ways it’s more important than graduation because they have finally made it to qualification. That’s to a large extent the public face of the department: it’s our big showcase event that makes all the work behind the scenes worthwhile.”