Curran: Opportunity for legal regulators
The training of lawyers in England and Wales, both at law schools and through CPD, “is not good enough” and could be improved by regulation, a leading legal academic has told MPs.
Dr Liz Curran, associate professor at Nottingham Law School, also called for mandatory pro bono to be introduced for all law firms with government contracts.
Speaking to the justice select committee at a session on access to justice, Dr Curran said there was a “missed opportunity” in terms of CPD.
“Lawyers in Australia for example, in order to keep their practising certificates whether they are a barrister or solicitor, are required to do mandatory areas of CPD, which don’t just rest with the Bar or Law Society, in terms of what good practice is and is not.
“That includes good ethical practices, how to communicate with clients, trauma-informed practice, dealing with vulnerable groups – let’s not forget what we’re talking about here.”
Dr Curran went on: “The regulators and the legal profession could do a lot more, but I don’t think the training of the profession, either at law school or as CPD, is good enough.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for the legal regulators to actually do something.”
Also giving evidence, Tom Hayhoe, chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, responded: “There are many lawyers out there doing great stuff. It’s important not to lose sight of that.”
However, he said he believed that qualifying as a lawyer now allowed for a “narrower base of legal knowledge” with less exposure to “some of those areas of underserved law”.
This meant that, if they wanted to do pro bono work, young lawyers did not have the skills and knowledge needed for housing or welfare law, “because even though you may want to take your break from working in a magic circle firm and go and do your little bit, you’ve got to that point in your career without having the knowledge that a generation ago you might well have had”.
Dr Curran, who first qualified and worked as a solicitor in Australia, called for the introduction of Australian-style mandatory pro bono, particularly for lawyers who bring in “a lot of money” through government contracts.
She said mandatory pro bono for lawyers doing government work in the state of Victoria had, over the last 20 years, led to “a shift in culture” in the legal profession, where they are “genuinely committed to access to justice” and run their own in-house pro bono units.
Dr Curran said if law firms were going to get “a large amount of government work”, such as public inquiries, “I don’t think it’s too much to ask, for the rule of law and equality before the law, for something to be given back”.
She added: “I know the government [in the UK] has an appetite for looking at this and I would encourage it. There are fantastic models from around the world.”
Mr Hayhoe dissented “slightly” from this. “We’re putting a sticking plaster on something that shouldn’t be there in the first place,” he told MPs.
“We have a problem, that for better or worse, legal aid no longer exists and we have a market that is failing. If we were able to harness all the innovative stuff, we wouldn’t be looking to a mandated pro bono model.”
Dr Curran said she had seen “very little appetite” by legal regulators in this country to improve access to justice. “Why is it possible to do things in other jurisdictions, but not here?”