Law graduates who aspire to qualify as solicitors in Scotland look set to face a more robust assessment of their competence during their compulsory two-year traineeship.

After the most wide-ranging review of Scottish legal education and training for a generation, the education and training committee of the Law Society of Scotland is to recommend clearly defined outcomes that must be met before the training contract is discharged by firms.

Subject to the approval of the society’s council, the proposals will go out to consultation later this year. Final recommendations will be put to the vote at its annual general meeting next May.

At present Scottish solicitors usually require the LLB in Scots law, a postgraduate diploma in legal practice and a two-year traineeship under the supervision of a qualified solicitor who has at least three consecutive practising certificates.

Trainees are given quarterly reviews, but are not required to meet competences. Provided they complete the full two years and are signed off as a fit and proper person to be a solicitor, they will go on to qualify.

Liz Campbell, the society’s director of education and training, says that the committee is to recommend that the basic structure of the foundation stage — the LLB or equivalent — and the vocational stage — the diploma and traineeship — will remain. However, she says that the traineeship is likely to be revamped.

“We are recommending that there be structured CPD for trainees, defined outcomes for the traineeship and that the quarterly performance reviews that trainees complete be retained but linked to the outcomes.

“The trainees would be assessed on their performance against various criteria and, at the end of the traineeship, the firms would certify the trainee has having met those outcomes.”

Ms Campbell says that the society will seek to strike a balance between driving up standards and creating a perception among solicitors that taking on a trainee would become more of a burden.

Latest figures collated by the society show that 37 graduates have had their training contracts cancelled or postponed after the sharp downturn in the residential property market.

The economy also may have influenced the numbers entering training at the Scottish Bar, with only 11 candidates entering the Faculty of Advocates’ foundation course this October. In recent years, about 20 advocates have been called to the Bar each year.

Andrew Stewart, the clerk of faculty, says that he is not aware of any particular reason for the decline. However, he confirms that access to training for the Bar is to widen after the application of two “new” law schools for faculty accreditation.

If Napier and Glasgow Caledonian law schools are approved, then graduates from all Scottish law schools will be eligible to apply to go to the Bar, subject to its other entrance requirements. Stewart says that the accreditation will be retrospective, to ensure that past graduates are not deterred from considering a career as an advocate.

“At the Bar, it’s very important to get the best people,” he says. “They must be drawn from the widest possible pool.”

Campbell adds that the society’s education and training committee will propose widening access to the profession by giving credit to those who have achieved an academic standard “equivalent” to graduate level.

“We would have to some form of assessment of what that equivalence might be in individual cases. The majority of people would have been through some form of supported learning, along the lines of the Law Society professional exams at present, but rather than it being what we have just now which is now give them a syllabus reading list, there would be a structure around that.”

Campbell predicts that a distance-learning LLB in Scots law and a part-time Diploma in Legal Practice will be introduced, though this depends on law schools.

“We are hoping to work with the universities to bring in more flexible approaches to degrees and distance learning,” she says. “Obviously it won’t be the Law Society setting up those routes.”

Further information on qualifying as a solicitor or advocate in Scotland is available from:

The Law Society of Scotland: www.lawscot.org.uk

The Faculty of Advocates: www.advocates.org.uk

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