The new Diploma in Legal Practice

Much has already been printed in these pages about the development of a new training regime for Scottish solicitors. The advent of what is Diploma Mark III is the first stage of implementation. The new course is the product of extensive consultation and a phenomenal amount of hard work by dedicated people giving of their time freely. It has been developed in partnership with those who will provide the Diploma on the Society’s behalf, namely the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and the Glasgow Graduate School of Law.

The new Diploma is only one element in the review of solicitors’ training. It is the first new element to be introduced, from which the other components will flow. The trainees who graduate with the new Diploma will complete training checklists, have their traineeships monitored by the Society, complete a three week Professional Competence Course and sit the first compulsory Test of Professional Competence. Each of these elements has been designed as part of an integrated approach to training aimed at giving newly qualified solicitors the best possible grounding for their professional lives. Information about the new regime appears on the Society’s website and further articles will follow.

The titles of some elements of the new Diploma will appear familiar to many of you; it retains courses dealing with Civil Court Practice, Company and Commercial, Conveyancing, Criminal Court Practice, Financial Services, Private Client, Professional Ethics and Public Administration. The Practice Management course is a new and very necessary change to the syllabus which aims to develop knowledge and understanding of the practice management skills required in professional practice. However, the nomenclature attached to individual elements of the course is insufficient to emphasise the philosophy underpinning the Diploma.

Expressed at the most fundamental level, the object of the Diploma is to equip students with the basic skills and knowledge required for legal practice. It aims to provide the best possible bridge between studying law and working as a practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. Of course, at its inception in 1980, the Diploma was designed as such a bridge and, indeed, has been regarded as fulfilling that function since. Significantly, however, the last fundamental reassessment was a five year review in 1985. The time devoted to the present review process is indicative of the level of scrutiny to which the Diploma has been subjected and demonstrates the commitment of the Society to developing a course which meets the needs of today’s trainees, training practices, the legal profession generally and, ultimately, the public.

Specific learning objectives have been developed for each component course, setting out the level of understanding students should be able to demonstrate on completion of that course. Throughout the process the pivotal nature of training in the essential skills of advocacy, interviewing and advising, legal research, negotiation and writing and drafting has been emphasised. Legal skills are, of course, transferable skills and for this reason will often be taught pervasively in the context of specific legal practice areas. Universities may choose to approach individual skills by means of a foundation course and the Society supports this flexibility of approach.

The extent to which skills training is a cornerstone of the new Diploma is evidenced by the emphasis which has been placed by the Society on imparting the objectives of the new course to the authors preparing the teaching materials and by the universities in equipping their tutors with the skills they will need to deliver the necessary level of skills training to the students. Guidelines on devising skills training materials were issued to all of the authors preparing materials for the new course. They were also invited to attend a series of meetings with the Society/University Working Party overseeing the progress of the new Diploma syllabus.

This partnership approach to the Diploma has resulted in each course having either new or substantially rewritten materials. For the first time, there will be a separate students manual and tutors manual for each course. The students manual has information about the course and how it will be taught, together with a synopsis of the skills training exercises and details of the specific legal skills to be addressed in each. The tutors manual offers guidance on teaching the exercises. Many of the courses also have a separate volume of resource materials to be used for reference.

The specific emphasis on skills training in the Diploma involves students practising and being assessed on their performance of specific legal skills. These exercises cannot be delivered by a “talk and chalk” approach to teaching. In most cases, they will involve tutors in explaining to the students what it is they are to do and demonstrating the task, before asking the students themselves to complete a particular exercise. Feedback on performance is an essential element of the process and time must be made available for reflection. The focus on skills training complements and feeds into the practical legal knowledge. Each skills exercise must be viewed in the context of, for example, how to successfully conclude an action or transfer a house.

 Universities will retain some flexibility in delivery of the Diploma, drawing upon the resources and expertise available to them locally and, undoubtedly, methods of delivery of individual courses within the Diploma will vary between providers. Prior to this year, some teaching on the Diploma was already carried out by means of skills training. However, with the new Diploma, the Society is demonstrating its own commitment to greater involvement in driving forward the evolution and delivery of a course which equips students with the wide variety of skills essential to meet the demands of a legal career in the twenty-first century.

The Society will retain a central role in the ongoing development of the Diploma. What is being offered for the 2000/2001 academic year is only the start of the process. The course content and materials will evolve over time, as the wide range of people involved with the Diploma discover what can be done. The success of the Diploma will be assured by the commitment to skills training on the part of the Society, the universities, the tutors and the students. In this we all have a role to play. As Alastair Thornton, the President, identified in his Report in last month’s Journal, the Society will monitor progress of the new Diploma to ensure that it meets the needs of the profession and its clients. To assist us in this process we will welcome constructive feedback from anybody interested in ensuring that today’s students and trainees become the best possible lawyers of tomorrow.

Liz Campbell, lizcampbell@lawscot.org.uk