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19 January 2012 / Jane Ching , Natalie Byrom
Issue: 7497 / Categories: Features , Training & education , Profession
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Question time

Jane Ching & Natalie Byrom grapple with the present & future demands of legal services education

 

Happy new year, happy new legal services landscape. With the first (conveyancing) ABSs already in place and others to follow, ever-present changes to legal aid, and university applications decreasing, predicting where the legal profession might be in even the very near future is an enormous task. Then work backwards to work out what kind of education and training system might be needed to equip people to work in the new landscape and to deal with future changes to it. And then suggest how that system might best be regulated (by, for example, regulating training providers and courses; by regulating outcomes; by regulating how individual legal services businesses are conducted, or some combination of all of the above?). All of this is the challenge with which the legal education and training review research team has been grappling since the middle of last year.

Question marks

You may well have seen the research questions we
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Clarke Willmott—Matthew Roach

Clarke Willmott—Matthew Roach

Partner joins commercial property team in Taunton office

Farrer & Co—Richard Lane

Farrer & Co—Richard Lane

Londstanding London firm appoints new senior partner

Bird & Bird—Sue McLean

Bird & Bird—Sue McLean

Commercial team in London welcomes technology specialist as partner

NEWS
The legal profession’s claim to be a ‘guardian of fairness’ is under scrutiny after stark findings on gender imbalance and opaque progression. Writing in NLJ this week, Joshua Purser of No5 Barristers’ Chambers and Govindi Deerasinghe of Global 50/50 warn that leadership remains dominated by a narrow elite, with men holding 71% of top court roles
A legal challenge to police disclosure rules has failed, reinforcing a push for transparency in policing. In NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth examines a case where the Metropolitan Police required officers to declare membership of groups like the Freemasons
Bereavement leave is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Writing in NLJ this week, Robert Hargreaves of York St John University explains how the Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces a day-one right to leave for a wider range of losses, alongside new provisions for pregnancy loss and bereaved partners
Courts are beginning to grapple with whether AI-generated material is legally privileged—and the answers are mixed. In this week's issue of NLJ, Stacie Bourton, Tom Whittaker & Beata Kolodziej of Burges Salmon examine US rulings showing how easily privilege can be lost
New guidance seeks to bring order to the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in expert evidence. Writing in NLJ this week, Minesh Tanna and David Bridge of Simmons & Simmons set out a framework stressing ‘transparency’, ‘explainability’ and ‘reliability’
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