1. English Legal System
The Legal Professions and the provision of legal services
Solicitors
Barristers
Reforms to the profession

2. Aims The aims of this lecture are:
To introduce you to the legal professions in England and Wales;
To describe the functions which barristers and solicitors fulfil within the legal system;
To look at reforms which have been made to the provision of legal services by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and the Access to Justice Act 1999;
To critically evaluate the success of those reforms and the scope for further reform of the provision of such services.

3. Outcomes By the end of this lecture you should be able to:
Describe the current division of the professions in England and Wales, and describe what someone working in either of them may do;
Describe the reforms to the provision of legal services introduced by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and Access to Justice Act 1999 and critically assess how significant they were;
Describe further developments in the reform of the professions and state whether you think that these are desirable.

4. The Legal Professions and the provision of legal services
Two main branches – historically there were others and still there are notaries, although these are often qualified solicitors or barristers
Solicitors of the Supreme Court of England and Wales
Barristers in practice at the Independent Bar of England and Wales

5. Solicitors Private practice and employed
Approx 80,000 practising solicitors
81% working in private practice
19% public sector, commerce and industry

6. The role of solicitors Advising clients direct
Dealing with non-contentious work, such as probate etc…
Preparing cases for litigation, issuing proceedings etc…
Conveyancing – once the sole preserve of solicitors
The Court and Legal Services Act 1990 allowed for the first time licensed conveyancers

7. Structure of private practice
Solicitors in private practice work in a partnership or as sole practitioners
Ranging from hundreds of partners (nationwide and international firms) to High Street practices
Many solicitors are employed by partners
Solicitors are regulated by the Law Society

8. Sex Discrimination
33.9% of solicitor’s with practising certificates are women
51% of all new solicitors in 1998 were women
25% of women solicitors are partners vs 55% of male solicitors who were partners in 1998
10-19 year’s experience 87% of men are partners vs 63% of women

9. Sex Discrimination Median salary for female partners: £36,000
Median salary for male partners: £51,000

10. Racial Discrimination
6.6.% of solicitors are from an ethnic minority

11. Training and Regulation
In order to become a solicitor in England and Wales, one must do a law graduate or a degree in another discipline and the CPE, the academic stage of training
After this academic stage there follows the one year LPC and then two years of a training contract
Alternatively there still exists the possibility of training as legal executive and qualifying via that route
Solicitors are regulated by the Law Society of England and Wales which has offices in Chancery Lane London

12. The Legal Practice Course (LPC)
This is the year of vocational training equivalent to the BVC for barristers
It is expensive, as is the BVC, but has always been more regionally based
LPC students have to do core areas such as conveyancing and business accounts
They also do skills areas similar to barristers such as interviewing and drafting

13. Continual Professional Development
Both barristers and solicitors must participate in continuing training
They must attend a certain number of CPD every year
Courses are run by the Inns of Court for junior barristers and also by universities and colleges across England and Wales

14. Barristers (10,000 approx) Specialists? Advocacy Drafting
Advice/Opinion writing

15. Sex Discrimination? 25% of barristers are women (1998)
50% of new barristers are women (1998)
7% of QCs are women (1998)
1994 only 8% of applicants for QC were women but more than 20% succeeded (higher proportionately than men)

16. Racial Discrimination?
Only 1% of QCs (1998)
Success rate for appointment in 1998: 18.5% vs 12% for non-ethnic minority

17. Training and Regulation
In order to qualify as a barrister you need to do the following:
Either
A lower second class law degree
A lower second class degree in a discipline other than law and have passed the Common Professional Examination or Graduate Diploma in Law
After undertaking these you have to do a year on the Bar Vocational Course, which is the first stage of vocational training for the Bar
Complete a year of pupillage

18. The Bar Vocational Course
This is the first compulsory element of vocational training for entry to the profession
The aim of the course has been to focus on the skills that the barrister needs in practice, along with the substantive knowledge areas
The skills taught on the BVC are Advocacy, Drafting, Opinion Writing, Negotiation and Conferencing
The substantive knowledge areas cover Criminal and Civil Procedure, along with the rules of evidence

19. Criticism of the BVC
The BVC has been criticised on a number of grounds:
It is too expensive;
It lacks academic rigour;
It is centred on the capital where most providers are based.

20. The Inns of Court Traditionally these trained barristers for practice
In Tudor times they were described as ‘the third university of England’ after Oxford and Cambridge
The common law was not taught at the universities until 19th century, only the Roman or Civil Law was considered worthy of study
All students commencing the BVC must be a member of an Inn of Court
There are four Inns, the Middle and Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn

21. Professional Regulation
Regulation of professions has increased in recent years
Traditionally professions have been characterised by self-regulation
This has become more complex and difficult in modern times
The Bar Council is the body which both regulates and promotes the interests of the Independent Bar of England and Wales
Was not established until the late nineteenth century

22. Professional Conduct
Barristers have to comply with the Bar Code of Conduct in order to practise in England and Wales. This governs a variety of matters, but the main ones can be summarised as follows:
Duties towards clients, both professional and lay clients and to the court;
The Cab-rank rule;
Regulation of who can practise in a jurisdiction;
Written guidance on the conduct/appropriateness of barristers engaging in certain conduct.

23. Liability of Advocates
It used to be the position that an advocate could not be sued for his advocacy in the face of the court
This was established in the case of Rondel v Worsley 1969
The rationale that the court gave was that there may be a conflict of interest between the duty to the court and the duty to the lay/professional client if the barrister could be held liable for his actions in front of the court
It was changed in the landmark case of Arthur J S Hall & Co. Ltd v Simons 2000

24. Separate branches
First point of call for someone who needs to instruct a lawyer will a solicitor
This has now changed to certain extent with the introduction of BarDirect, the instruction of barristers by certain clients directly
Barristers cannot be solicitors at the same time
Most judges are former barristers (in 1996 only 72 out of 517 circuit judges were former solicitors)

25. Reform Direct Access to the Bar? Rights of audience
Multi Disciplinary solicitor’s Partnerships

26. Direct Access to the Bar
Professional clients
Others
Can barristers service clients?

27. Rights of audience Magistrates’ Courts Access to Justice Act 1999
Automatic rights with training
200+ solicitor advocates in Dec 94
1077 solicitor advocates in Aug 2000
341 of these are qualified for civil work

28. Fusion: Will Barrister’s chambers disappear?
City solicitors’ firms take advocacy in-house

29. “Members of the public should be educated by us that the most likely scenario is that they will not need to go to a barrister” (Mark Humphries, Head of Advocacy, Linklaters, from “Solicitors on Trial” Law Society Gazette, )
“No one in the City calls themselves solicitors…Solicitors are all referred to as lawyers. The big international clients can’t understand why we are bringing in barristers. It’s an unnecessary fee add-on to them” (John Potts, Managing partner for litigation, Clifford Chance ibid).

30. Counter arguments Smaller solicitors’ firms
“To be really good at advocacy you need to do it all the time, and solicitor-advocates don’t” (Bruce Houlder QC)
Can barristers provide a more objective viewpoint?

31. Multi Disciplinary Partnerships
S.66 Courts and Legal Services Act 1990
Possible advantages of MDPs:
Freedom of association and consumer choice
A wider range of services
Economies of scale
Possible disadvantages:
Independence of services
Legal Professional Privilege
Complaints against MDPs harder
Concentration of all the best in one place
Client confidentiality

32. Summary of lecture You now be able to:
Describe the roles of the two branches of the profession within the English Legal System;
Identify the different models for training within the English Legal System;
Describe areas for further reform of the professions and critically consider whether those reforms are desirable.

33. Further reading on the professions
Zander, Cases and Materials on the English Legal System
Slapper and Kelly
Darbyshire On the English Legal System