The regulatory needs and demands of the legal market mean the framework for vocational education for intending solicitors is likely to change. The direction of change will emerge from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority’s (SRA’s) current consultations on the future structure of the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and on a new framework for work-based learning. Quite rightly, the SRA is keen to ensure that those joining the profession should “come from a wide range of backgrounds and experience” while still maintaining proper entry standards.
This in turn focuses attention on the cost and flexibility of paths to qualification; the SRA’s consultation paper on the LPC approaches these two factors in a number of ways, including a proposal to take a more permissive attitude to the framework within which LPCs are approved and monitored. This is to be welcomed, since at least some of the cost of an LPC is currently dictated by the regulator’s rigid prescription of key resource.
