The Law Society plans to make the process by which it rates LPC course providers more transparent to make its findings more authoritative.
The Law Society does not currently publish investigation results – it remains confidential between the provider and the society.
But a senior official from the Law Society admitted that greater transparency was needed in order to justify the decision-making process.
He said: “We want openness so that institutions compete with each other in order to raise standards.”
The decision follows Legal Week’s revelation last week that the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice faces being downgraded from an ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ rating, following a confidential Law Society review.
Legal Week understands that LPC course providers Leeds Metropolitan University and Bournemouth University are set to see their ratings drop from ‘good’ to ‘satisfactory’ following a similar review.
The review sees the course providers subjected to a two-and-a-half day inquiry into a wide range of areas including teaching standards and management.
The review is then sent to the Legal Practice Board, which makes a decision on an appropriate grading for the college, which the college may or may not choose to publicise.
The Law Society source said transparency would involve putting the report into the public domain.
He said that a dummy report was being prepared to test the water and he hoped that real procedures would be in place by October.
Neither Bournemouth nor Leeds were available for comment.
