Stars of the future

It has been five years in the making, but in the next few months we will see finally coming to fruition the new improved route to qualification as a solicitor that should establish clear competences and standards from the moment the NQ emerges from their traineeship.

The subtle changes on the surface – the Diploma is now the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice; the traineeship remains at two years but now incorporates Trainee CPD ("TCPD") in place of the Professional Competence Course – tell nothing of the root-and-branch review that has been undertaken with a view to ensuring, first, that the training is as relevant as possible to each individual's needs, and secondly that there are proper benchmarks against which the intending solicitor's progress can be assessed at each stage.

When will solicitors now in practice start to notice a difference? Apart from the CPD changes (see p16), that will depend whether or not their firm takes on trainees. Any firm with a trainee starting after 1 September 2011 will have to comply with the new requirements (but those who get in ahead of that date, whether this year's Diploma graduates or those from earlier, will come in under the current rules). For the rest, they should see a real difference two years down the line whenever they come to employ a NQ solicitor.

Grown in PEAT

The acronym PEAT – Professional Education And Training – has been adopted as the umbrella term for the new system, to emphasise that it is a continuous progression through to qualification, with each stage following on naturally from the one before. Simply, PEAT 1 is the Diploma stage and PEAT 2 the traineeship. But it isn't a set of letters that an individual will end up putting after their name. So what are those outcomes that the whole process is designed to achieve?

"For the first time we're setting out a minimum benchmark standard for what it means to be a solicitor", says Rob Marrs, senior policy and development manager in the Society's Education & Training team. "Very simply, you should not exit PEAT 2, the traineeship, without having met defined outcomes in professionalism, professional communication, professional ethics and standards, business, commercial, financial and practice awareness, and substantive and relevant legal knowledge."

Guidance to be published by the Society over the summer will set out what trainees have to do over their two years to achieve these outcomes. TCPD should assist that, as should the quarterly performance reviews. The latter will no longer grade the trainees on a 1-9 scale but will focus on the standard that needs to be achieved over the two years, measure the trainee against that and identify areas that the trainee requires to work on, "always focusing on competence, on fitness and propriety to become a solicitor", says Marrs, "and on what training requirements still require to be satisfied in order to achieve that".

TCPD: flexible options

The replacement of the Professional Competence Course with the TCPD requirement – a minimum 60 hours over the two years – should benefit firms as well as trainees. Firms, because it can be scheduled flexibly and doesn't have to take the trainee away for a block of days as at present. And trainees, because apart from a mandatory four hours of an ethics course, covering topics such as conflict of interest, confidentiality and anti-money laundering, it can be tailored to the needs of the individual. "Each trainee develops differently and the TCPD they will need will be different", Marrs comments.

There are other significant changes. Of the 60 hours, a minimum of 40 will have to be from an authorised provider, and the Society is currently open to applications for authorisation. These could be from a training firm seeking to offer bespoke TCPD for its own trainees, as well as universities or others intending to offer it to all comers. Web-based courses will be able to count, helping those especially in more rural areas. And up to 20 hours of the 60 can be non-authorised, which may be the CPD solicitors undertake: for example if you are training in family law and there is a change in the law, the CPD available around that is as valuable to the trainee as it is to the qualified solicitor.

"The purpose of TCPD training is twofold", says Director of Education & Training Liz Campbell. "One, to embed at an early stage the importance of CPD; more importantly for the trainee, it's to assist the trainee in achieving the outcomes. Some trainees may come into your firm very able in one particular area and need less support and guidance in that area, whereas in another area of practice or of skills development they may need some additional support, and these training needs can be addressed through TCPD.

"The firm will monitor progress, with guidance of the Society, of the trainee across the two years and submit the quarterly performance review. The trainee will also be required to spend some time logging what they are achieving on their traineeship, what their TCPD consists of, what they have learned from that, how have they been able to apply that back to their training and to their development as a professional, and at the end of the two years, all being well, the firm will certify that the trainee is in their opinion fit and proper and competent and has met all the outcomes."

Tailored Diploma

What of the Diploma, consistently viewed as something of a Cinderella of the stages to qualification, despite the best efforts to increase its appeal? How is it being aligned more closely with the traineeship that follows?

"As with the traineeship, we are also introducing an exit standard which in many ways is also an entrance standard to the traineeship", Marrs explains, "so we hope the days of a training firm getting a new trainee and not knowing what they are capable of, or having unreal expectations of what they are capable of, will be gone. The PEAT 1 outcomes indicate the minimum that a first day trainee can do, but as well as that, the PEAT 1 programme has a number of things that I think firms of all sizes will like to see."

The principal one that will be of interest to intending trainees as well as their firms is the greater element of choice. Whereas at the moment there is only an election between the company/commercial and public administration modules, in the future up to 50% of the Diploma will be elective. "What's particularly interesting is that universities will play to their strengths", Campbell adds. "We know that Diploma providers will offer electives that build upon their strengths and local expertise.

"So students may begin to choose where they go on the nature of the electives, and we may see firms saying to trainees that they have already recruited, it might be an idea if you are coming to an energy law firm, to do the energy elective. Or a litigation firm might say, don't just do the litigation, do the advanced litigation elective as well. So hopefully we will see a much greater channel of communication between academia and the practising profession, and that doesn't have to be big firms, it can be any size of firm, and I think there has been a real positive belief in all sectors of the profession about that."

Another point of interest is that tax, that scary subject, will be taught "pervasively" rather than as a discrete unit. In other words, it will be taught in context wherever relevant across the core subjects. Who knows, such an approach may even help to win back business that lawyers have lost to accountants.

It will still be the case that Diploma teaching will give students the chance to engage in simulated transactions where they can make mistakes without the consequences that would entail in practice. Now, however, there is closer mapping of the desired outcomes across from PEAT 1 to PEAT 2, "so that what we're saying is that this is a three year process: the Diploma at the vocational stage becomes much more obviously relevant, if it becomes clear that this is where you get to after one year, and in the following two years you build on that knowledge and ramp it up and hone it", says Campbell.

Benchmarking the LLB

Going back a step further still, the initial law degree has also had an overhaul, so far as those intending to practise are concerned, with all the universities offering the LLB having to apply to the Society for re-accreditation.

Here the big change is a move away from the traditional list of professional subjects which universities required to teach, towards – once again – a set of prescribed outcomes to be met, in this case in knowledge, skills, and values and attitudes. That doesn't mean you can achieve these without completing your degree – it is still necessary to achieve the number of credits that go with a full degree programme, whether at ordinary or honours level, a minimum amount of which must be in law. The accreditation process requires each university to map their teaching to the Society's outcomes, as well as satisfying the Society as to general standards like staffing, facilities, assessment mechanisms and so on.

And with up to 50% of LLB students now having no intention of entering the profession, there has been a balancing act to be struck between having a degree that's part of a professional qualification and one that is a more general liberal arts qualification. "That's a balance we've been trying to strike in our requirements for accreditation", Campbell explains.

One thing hasn't changed – yet. The LLB degree remains formally an exemption from having to sit the Society's exams, a route still followed by between 10 and 15 people a year, on average, in conjunction with a pre-Diploma traineeship. That option remains for the time being, though the content of the exams is also to come under review.

Relevant experience?

With more people seeking to qualify as solicitor having had previous legal-related work experience, for example as a paralegal, is there any more scope for such experience to count in their favour towards reducing, say, the two years of the traineeship, a matter which from time to time has to be considered by the Society's Admissions Committee?

The answer is that it will still be up to the individual to make a case why they should be given a dispensation, but the defined outcomes should now make it easier for the committee to evaluate their past experience. Marrs explains:

"At the moment the Admissions Committee consider applications for a reduction in length of traineeship on merit and will continue to do so, but in future if you are a paralegal or have other relevant work experience, you may be able to say I do meet some outcomes, I just need experience in other areas. That may still not be enough for the committee to agree with the paralegal's case, but at least the outcomes give them a clearer metric to grade against to make a decision."

Campbell adds: "It very much depends on individual circumstances; this includes the length of experience and what those individuals have been exposed to, and how it is analogous to the training of a solicitor, because as a paralegal or any other law-related job an individual may have done, they may have been working in a very narrow area with very narrow experience. So it would not be an automatic right to time off the two year traineeship on that basis, and we still have to say that the onus is on the individual to convince rather than on the committee."

Collective effort

Coming back to where we started, the effects likely to be felt by firms in practice, is there anything apart from the new flexibility surrounding TCPD to encourage those who have not in the past taken on a trainee, to do so now?

"There is much more assistance and guidance from the Society than there has been before", says Campbell. "Already we have on the Society's website, the PEAT 2 training plan, a default plan if you like that explains what firms will need to do. Across the summer we'll be developing a toolkit, if that's an appropriate way to describe it, that will be available to the profession if they want to use it. It won't be mandatory but for anyone seeking to take on a trainee for the first time it will be of help or guidance from the Society around how you undertake performance reviews, how you set objectives, how you assess how your trainee is performing. And towards the end of the summer we'll be offering Train the Trainer courses which will have practical guidance for those responsible for training in all those areas."

Marrs adds: "We actually give clear examples in the PEAT 2 training plan of the sort of work trainees might need to undertake or the sort of thing they need to do. Sometimes it's just observing experienced practitioners; sometimes it's getting involved in a transaction. It goes into the importance of an induction, the sorts of things that can be done then. It's a really comprehensive document. It's labelled 'draft', and I think it's the sort of document that may always be a draft, because whenever we get feedback it will be built in, and hopefully it will be an evolving document that will be of real use to the profession, and the more the profession deal with us and the more feedback we get, the more useful it will be for them."

Looking back over the whole project, he comments: "We've been very grateful to any number of solicitors all over the country from all sizes of firm, and from no firm at all in the case of some retired solicitors, or in-house solicitors, who have given up their time to help in a number of ways: be it TCPD, be it the 'fit and proper' test, the PEAT 2 outcomes working party. The input from the profession has been absolutely massive, so it’s a Society project but really it's the profession's project. We're very aware of that and we're very thankful for it."

Next month’s issue will feature an interview with a training manager at a leading practice, who has been closely involved in the work leading up to the reforms.

A long road travelled

The changes to the route to qualification and solicitors’ CPD, which come in later this year, have been informed by consultation with the profession, the academic community and others with an interest in the education and training of solicitors.

The process began in November 2006, when the Society launched a consultation, Shaping the Future of Legal Education and Training (Journal, October 2006, 16), which invited views on the current structure and content of solicitors’ education and training and suggestions for the future. That consultation attracted over 900 responses, with many respondents giving detailed free-text comments. The views expressed helped to inform policy development, and in January 2008, the Society consulted on a document entitled Discussing the Detail (Journal, January 2008, 28), which set out key policy considerations and the detail of proposals for each pre-qualification stage and for CPD.

The final consultation stage took place with publication of The Way Forward in November 2008 (Journal, October 2008, 36). The policy proposals that emerged were placed before the Society’s AGM in May 2009; since then the Society has been working towards the implementation date of September 2011 for the changes to pre-qualification education and training, and November 2011 for changes to solicitors’ CPD.

This work would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous members of the profession who have shared ideas and time through involvement in various working parties, focus groups and accreditation panels.