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| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Solicitors'' CPD: time to change from regulatory stick to regulatory carrot? |
| Author: | Ching, Jane |
| Abstract: | The legal professions are agreed on the need for some form of continuing professional development (“CPD”) after qualification. What is less clear is the intention of such frameworks and in contrast to other forms of more diffuse learning in the workplace. I will explore two areas of tension in the current solicitors‟ CPD system which will bear attention before any of these three related objectives can be achieved: Between a didactic form of delivery focussing on technical updating of knowledge of law and procedure and more “difficult” participative CPD activity; Between accountability, regulation and personal development as drivers behind the CPD scheme dear to different stakeholders. The paper will conclude that, whilst the paradigm shift apparent in the regulators and the professional body is to be welcomed, a change of culture in the profession as a whole is required. This requires CPD, in partnership with other forms of learning, to be viewed in terms of outputs and benefits: the carrots of the title. It is not only a negligence-avoiding maintenance of a static level of competence but a mechanism to address the change which will inevitably result from the full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007. |
| URL | http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/2011/issue3/ching3.html |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication | Web Journal of Current Legal Issues |
| Date | 2011-00-00 2011 |