Appendix C: Summaries of interim papers and events attended

Briefing Paper 1/2011. Competence

Current legal education and training models in England and Wales rely only in part on loose competence frameworks. Although a revised competence system or outcomes statements will not be a direct output of the LETR research, it is important to understand the basic strengths and weaknesses of competence-based models in evaluating possible ways forward for the regulation of legal education and training. This briefing paper thus provides a guide to the notion of competence and the way it is used in competence-based systems of learning. It outlines the key issues concerning competence and the use of competencies, and cautions against the assumption that competence-based approaches are largely accepted and unproblematic.

Discussion Paper 01/2011. Project Scope, Research Questions and Assumptions

This paper set out for the members of the Consultation Steering Panel an overview of the research team’s approach, research questions and proposed methodology. It also introduced a number of assumptions:

(a) Recommendations for change must, so far as possible, be evidenced-based.

(b) The focus of the Review is on assuring competence to deliver legal services.

(c) The Review is shaped by the new regulatory context.

(d) The Review is sector-wide in its scope.

Discussion Paper 02/2011. Equality, Diversity and Social Mobility

This paper offers a general map of the sector in terms of its demographic composition, drawing primarily on the literature reviewed as part of Phase 1 of LETR. It explores the ways in which existing education and training practices might constitute initial and continuing barriers to access, and are hence a potential constraint on diversity and social mobility, and identifies a range of questions to which we would welcome responses from stakeholders and other interested parties.

Discussion Paper 01/2012. Key Issues I: Call for Evidence

This paper provides a brief description of the context for the Review, focussing particularly on the current regulatory framework, and discusses emerging issues from the work undertaken to date. The paper then describes some of the key strengths and weaknesses of the current system, and seeks to establish a relatively high-level consensus on what needs to change. While comments on any aspect of this paper are welcome, the following are topics on which the research team would be particularly interested in receiving views, analysis and evidence: The extent to which the overarching structure of LSET is or is not ‘fit for purpose’; any weaknesses that exist in respect of the existing stages in SET, and the extent to which there is willingness to consider radical change in the LSET system; and the extent to which the objectives and assumptions of the Legal Services Act (LSA) and the moves to Outcomes Focussed Regulation may be creating new or additional problems for the regulation of LSET.

Briefing Paper 1/2012. Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes Required for Practice at Present

This paper draws on previous studies and on current standards and competence this paper draws on previous studies and on current standards and competence frameworks used by a cross-section of regulators, professional bodies and employers in the field to identify a range of knowledge, skills and attitudes for paralegal practice, and for professional practice at point of qualification and post-qualification. The results are presented as a set of broad taxonomies for each of these ‘levels’ (broadly defined). This initial evaluation also identifies a range of generic skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes that may be missing from the existing frameworks and regulatory structure.

Briefing Paper 2/2012. Future Workforce Demand in the Legal Services Sector

This report, produced by Professor Rob Wilson of Warwick Institute of Employment Research (IER), examines the changing pattern of legal employment through employment projections for the legal services sector in England and Wales. The projections are based primarily on official statistics. The paper is divided into two parts: a summary report which highlights the main quantitative findings from this study and speculates on their implications for the future of legal services education and training, and a fuller technical report which sets out a baseline of quantitative information about the changing workforce over the decade to 2020, and identifies some gaps in and limits of existing data on the legal services workforce.

Briefing Paper 3/2012. Provocations and Perspectives

In this paper LETR Consultant Richard Susskind explores a range of issues and challenges facing the Review. He predicts that the next 30 years are likely to offer “immeasurably greater upheaval” in the legal services market. In this context the Review is a critical opportunity to invent the future. In so doing we need to focus on three things: what is changing, what the purposes of education and training should be, and the considerable impact of IT on the delivery of both legal services and legal education and training. The paper goes on to highlight, among other things, the following needs:

• to develop a new generation of ‘hybrid professionals’;
• to create opportunities for students to study current and future trends in legal services, and to develop new skills, such as risk and project management;
• to address key training problems for the profession as clients become less willing to subsidise training, and traditional trainee work becomes less available as a consequence of outsourcing, etc.;
• to develop tools and cultures that support just-in-time rather than just-in case learning;
• to ensure that all law students have the opportunity to develop a ‘thick understanding’ of law, its theory, history, structure and impact on society;
• to reduce the missed opportunities for research, collaboration and training that arise from existing gaps between academics and practitioners;
• to create a formal structure that will facilitate the systematic appraisal of the education and training system and training needs every three to five years.

Discussion Paper 02/2012. Key Issues II: Developing the Detail

This paper is the last of the four LETR Discussion Papers to be published as part of the research phase of the Review. It sets out to (a) identify short-term future trends in the delivery of legal services and consider their implications for legal services education and training (LSET); (b) summarise responses to Discussion Paper 01/2012, relate them to findings emerging from the research team’s fieldwork and identify key issues for the Review; (c) offer some initial indications of solutions under consideration, and to highlight important aspects of the relatively high-level, structural work the research team is undertaking on the frameworks, standards and tools for regulating LSET, and (d) seek further information, evidence and views from stakeholders on a range of specific questions raised by the research team’s work to date, and on the future direction of LSET.

Research Update 12/01. Contextual Analysis: Progress and Headline Findings

This paper describes the methodology and core areas of work conducted as stage 2 (‘contextual analysis’) of the LETR research phase, and highlights a range of interim findings from work with both the regulated and unregulated sectors. Its aim (and that of the stage 3 report which will follow it) is primarily descriptive. It sets out what the research team have done, how they have done it, and outlines work remaining, without seeking to draw firm conclusions from it.

Research Update 12/02. Workforce Development: Progress and Headline Findings

This paper describes the core areas of work conducted as part of stage 3 (‘workforce development’ and future training needs) of the LETR research phase. It highlights a range of findings concerning the knowledge skills and attributes required for practice; the role of technology and future forms of practice; paralegal and ‘technician’ roles within the sector and barriers to entry. The paper concludes with a section on legal developments in Wales and their implications for the LETR.

Briefing Paper 4/2012. Symposium Report

This paper contains keynote papers and summaries of the parallel and workshop sessions from the LETR Symposium held in July 2012.

Presentations at public events: research team

Public events attended: Co-Chairs

Speakers, facilitators and conveners at the LETR Symposium

James Atkin, Co-Operative Legal Services

Professor Stuart Bell, York Law School

Professor Julia Black, Department of Law and Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics

Julie Brannan, Oxford Brookes University

Diane Burleigh, CILEx

Ashley Chambers, Wragge & Co

Karl Chapman, Riverview Law

Peter Crisp, BPP

Kate Edwards, Co-Operative Legal Services

Rosy Emodi, Society of Black Lawyers

Dr Rachel Field, Queensland University of Technology

Pamela Henderson, Nottingham Law School

Tony King, Clifford Chance LLP

Dr Julian Lonbay, Birmingham Law School

Taryn Lee QC

Jane Masey, Allen & Overy LLP

Professor Stephen Mayson, Legal Services Institute

Steve Mark, Legal Services Commissioner for New South Wales, Australia

Mark Protherough, ICAEW

Professor Wes Pue, University of British Columbia

Professor Trudie Roberts, Leeds Institute of Medical Education

Alex Roy, Legal Services Board

Joshua Rozenberg

Professor Andrew Saunders, Birmingham Law School

Professor Richard Susskind OBE

Charles Welsh, Skills for Justice

Neil Wightman, Legal Services Consumer Panel

Professor Rob Wilson, Warwick Institute of Employment Research

Tanya Wilkins, OFT

Emily Windsor, BSB