The Gazette 1972

ipso facto be different in every way from that provided by the existing faculties of law and inevitably it will be organised and institutionalised in a completely different way. This is implicit in the Committee's statement of the factors which must govern the provision of the courses. Thus the professional bodies are to have a powerful influence over the courses and a large number of specially qualified teachers will have to be found. (Paras. 138, 139.) Further, only four or five centres are envisaged, so that the vast majority of university and college law schools will be completely unaffected. Integration or Rationalisation? Is this "integration into a coherent whole"? Timely rationalization it certainly may be, but it is doubtful if it is integration in the most commonly accepted sense of that term, which would call for a blending "into a coherent whole" of the two pre-qualification stages. All that is proposed by way of integration is that a law degree should be recognised per se as part of the qualifi- cation for practice and not merely as an entitlement to exemption from some of the professional examinations. (Para. 106.) (It may be noted that "law degree" is care- fully defined in para. 110 and includes a degree in law obtained after a three-year course of full-time study at a university in Northern Ireland, but in the case of the Republic of Ireland only a degree in law obtained at a university "which has been approved for the purpose".) This is not exactly a revolutionary proposal. As the Report itself states, the "practising Bar . . . is now be- coming almost a profession of law graduates; the solicitors' branch is clearly developing in the same direction". (Para. 35.) The law faculties and departments are in any event to be regarded as "an essential part of the training apparatus of the profession". But the real issue of greater integration of academic education and vocational training is to a large extent avoided, perhaps because it was considered impracticable to realise—but this is no- where stated. There is reference to "the desire of the law faculties to teach law as a broad and liberal edu- cation with only the vocational bias inherent in a pro- fessional subject, and to retain the maximum freedom to change their curricula and to experiment". The faculties also stressed to the Committee the large part which they played in the education of those law students who did not intend to enter the profession. The Com- mittee did not wish in any way to alter the existing situation "or to subject academic teaching to narrow vocational requirements", but at the same time it quotes (in para. 106) from the Robbins Report (on Higher Education) (1963) which mildly chided universities for their reluctance to undertake the imparting af practical techniques and emphasised there was no betrayal of values when institutions of higher education taught what would be of some practical use, provided that the teach- ing was such "as to promote the general powers of the mind". As may be seen, even this gentle reminder is hedged about with apologia from the Committee. Integration in Australasia However "academic" 'a law degree course may be, it is unlikely that there is not a great deal of it which is 11

qualification itself substantially modified and improv- ed". (Para. 85.) Emphasis is thus on the need to integrate academic uud professional training, drawing on medicine as the model. Whether or not one agrees with the medical model (as to which see infra), no-one surely could quarrel with the declaration that the traditional antithesis between "academic and vocational", "theoretical and practical", which has divided the universities from the professions in the past, must be eliminated by adjustment on both sides. There is, though, room to doubt whether such distinctions have any validity. Nor should any reasonable person disagree with the Committee's criti- cisms of the present system, involving, as it does, "dup- lication and overlaps leading to the poor utilisation of scarce resources, particularly accommodation, library provisions, and perhaps, most crucial of all — suitable teaching staff". (Para. 85.) Somewhat similarly the Irish Minister for Justice, Mr. D. O'Malley, after castigating legal education in Ireland (both for solicitors and barris- ters) for being "outdated and unsatisfactory", is re- Ported as having said, "The present confused system is, to say the least, illogical and wasteful of resources". ( (1971) 65 The Gazette of the I.L.S.I.135.) Two pre-qualification stages It will be seen that the Committee argues both on educational and on economic and pragmatic grounds tor integration. The basic outline of the scheme pro- posed for the future, as given in para. 100, indicates these stages in the legal educational process: (1) the academic stage, to be taken at a university or its equiv- alent; (2) the professional stage, comprising (a) organ- ised vocational training in an institutional setting and (o) practical training in a professional setting under supervision ("in-training"), an (improved) pupillage system being retained for the Bar, but the articles system for solicitors to be replaced by a period of three years limited practice after qualification. (There is also a Projected third (post-qualification) stage of continuing education and training, considered by the Committee to offer by far the best prospects of "growth" in legal education. Paras. 170-177, which discuss this stage, were criticised by a speaker at a recent symposium on theOrmrod Report as a "jumble of postscripts".) There may perhaps be detected a certain confusion °f ideas and ideals in the elaboration of the two pre- qualification stages, for what is suggested does not appear to achieve the desired integration of academic and professional training. Rather does it keep the pre- qualification stages in separate compartments. The university law schools will continue as before and will remain masters of their own houses (subject to certain limitations considered infra), provided that the courses mclude the "basic core subjects" as listed by the report, Constitutional Law, Law of Contract, Law of Tort, t (including "some elementary instruction in rusts") and Criminal Law. The vocational courses will ?? provided either "within the university and college nigher education structure" (if the majority has its way) ? T 7 the profession in its own schools (if the minority "as its way). (Paras. 140,143.) But no matter where the National training is provided, the training itself must