Solicitors sit in an odd state of limbo: once qualified there is no obligation to obtain any further or higher qualifications. Recognition of competence and expertise is internal, within the employing organisation, or by reputation rather than qualification given the absence of objective or externally assessable criteria promulgated by the profession.

A similar limbo surrounds the solicitors' continuing professional development (CPD) system. At present, its focus in fact, if not in intention, is on input rather than output. Provided one turns up to a session, the regulatory requirements are fulfilled. No one need demonstrate what has been learned, nor any maintenance of or improvement in competence as a result of that 16 hours of activity.

While there have been rumours about an increase in the prescribed hours, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has now identified, in its significant paper The Way Ahead, the “small number of CPD hours” as a matter to be addressed. This is not to say that individuals do not learn from CPD activity; simply that learning is not a necessary component of the solicitors' CPD system currently.

The current CPD system is a “sanctions” model based on input, teaching and compliance rather than a “benefits” model where the focus is on output and on demonstrable learning by individuals.

This focus on input alone is embedded in the profession's current definition of CPD: “Continuing professional development means a course, lecture, seminar or other programme or method of study (whether requiring attendance or not) that is relevant to the needs and professional standards of solicitors and complies with guidance issued from time to time by the [Law] Society.”

Contrast this with the output-oriented definition offered by the Professional Associations Research Network (PARN): “CPD is any process or activity of a planned nature that provides added value to the capability of the professional through the increase in knowledge, skills and personal qualities necessary for the execution of professional and technical duties, often termed competence. It is a lifelong tool that benefits the professional, client, employer, professional association and society as a whole and is particularly relevant during periods of rapid technological and occupational change.”

The need to “focus on process and time spent on CPD activities rather than outcomes” of the current system is also identified by the SRA in The Way Ahead.

The focus on input will impact on CPD events as effective educational environments, as places for learning. Typically, CPD activity remains, and is seen as, a lecture—one providing an update on law or procedure rather than interactive discussion or activity involving skills, values or attitudes. While there is a place for quick updates, updating lectures alone are an incomplete contribution to professional development. We have an understandable obsession with maintaining a grip on the constantly shifting sands of legal knowledge but the solicitor is, and can be, much more than a repository of up-to-date legal and procedural information.

Examples of a new emphasis on output and on learning, however, appear in the new LPC framework. A similar approach is articulated by the SRA for, in this context, the post-qualification phase, both in CPD and through experience in the workplace: “A career in which continuing education and professional development will be an integral part if the necessary standards of service are to be provided.

In particular there is a need to:

Also, in a changing environment, the changes should accommodate practitioners who wish to change the direction of their careers, enter new specialisms or move into new types of employment, while sustaining quality service.

Such aspirations require implementable steps to achieve them. Applicable both to CPD and to the workplace, the series of competences articulated as desiderata for the trainee as part of the work-based learning scheme being piloted by Nottingham Law School and others do, I suggest, go a long way towards providing such implementable steps for lawyers at any stage of their careers.

These competences place an emphasis on the output as well as the input, and they represent a formal introduction of the concept of “reflection” as a means of learning:

Nevertheless, the plans set out by the SRA in The Way Ahead only extend at this stage to a greater degree of monitoring of prior evaluation of developmental needs (7.1 and 7.4 above). The aspect of output is represented by maintenance of current knowledge (1.4) and by more generally enhanced future performance (7.3 and 7.4). This aspect is key to the concept of reflective learning reflected in outcome 7.3.

In its drive for change the SRA could do worse than supplement core duty 1.05 and build on references to training in rule 5 by incorporating work-based learning outcomes 1.4 and 7.1–7.4 into the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2007 to make the point. It is, after all, no more than the medical profession has already done.