Legal Education

The bar student has the indirect but valuable educational ad vantage of being a member of an inn of court and of consequent association with his fellow students and younger barristers. He has to keep 12 terms by dining six or three evenings a term in hall. In addition, the inns have now revived the ancient system of mooting, and moots are held each term, presided over by a judge or senior member of the bar, at which set subjects are argued by two students or young barristers on each side, in ac cordance with the procedure of courts of law, and are decided by the president. Moreover, it is customary for every student who can afford it to read in chambers for a year with a practising barrister, whose papers he reads, and for whom he drafts plead ings and opinions, which receive the master's correction. This period is often postponed, with advantage, till after call. It forms the most valuable part of legal training; and there are few men who have achieved success at the bar who will not gratefully attribute a large share in it to the training of a former master.

The Solicitors' Examination.

Admission to the solicitors' branch of the profession is controlled by the Law Society, who possess statutory powers given them originally by the Solicitors' Act of 1877 and extended by subsequent acts. In 1833 the In corporated Law Society inaugurated a system of lectures on com mon law equity and conveyancing; and about 1836 the common law judges, by rules, and the master of the rolls, by order, made it necessary for an attorney or solicitor to pass an examination before being admitted. The examinations were conducted by a committee of the Society, under the general control of the judiciary. The examination was made statutory by the Solicitors' Act 1843, and under the statute the examination was continued under the original control, until by the Solicitors' Act of 1877 it was placed under the sole control of the Incorporated Law Society. At present the examination in law consists of two parts, the intermediate and the final. The intermediate is an examination on Stephen's Commentaries and on trust accounts and bookkeep ing. The subjects for the final are the law of real property and conveyancing, equity, common law and bankruptcy, probate, di vorce and admiralty law, ecclesiastical and criminal law, and proceedings before justices of the peace. The Law Society pro vides an organized system of education under their director of studies. They have a principal, a reader, tutors and assistant tutors who lecture during the educational term on the subjects provided for the examination, both intermediate and final. The scheme of education is on the basis of four terms attendance for the intermediate, and six terms for the final, there being three terms in the year. The lectures are supplemented by classes for discussion and informal tuition. There is also a system of tuition by correspondence classes.

It is now provided by statute (Solicitors' Act 1922) that a stu dent shall not be admitted a solicitor unless he has attended for a year at a law school approved or provided by the Law Society. Such approved schools exist at nearly all the English universi ties, in some cases controlled or assisted by boards of studies, on which local solicitors are largely represented. Special schools have

also been provided by the Law Society, sometimes in connection with university extramural teaching. But the student's practical education is secured by the necessity of service under articles to a solicitor for a period of five years—reduced to four or three years in the case of persons possessing varying educational quali fications.

Teaching at the Universities.

Meantime, contemporane ously with the development of organized teaching by the inns of court and the Law Society for vocational purposes, the universi ties have proceeded to provide definite teaching in English law. From about the year 185o, the Universities of Oxford and Cam bridge began to take the subject seriously. It is impossible to pursue the history of the subject in existing universities old and new. For this article it is sufficient to say that nearly all Eng lish universities have a faculty of English Law, giving instruction by university professors and readers, and college lecturers : and in most cases granting degrees in law, or making law, or some portion of law, a necessary or optional subject for a degree. Many of the university teachers are amongst the foremost authori ties in the profession on the subjects which they expound. They, together with the lecturers of the inns of court and the Law Society, have formed a Society of the Public Teachers of Law, which meets annually to discuss subjects of common interest, and publishes a journal.

No one can doubt that present teaching, based on deep research and moved by real enthusiasm, is producing valuable results. There is in existence an extensive system of education, academic and vocational. It is distributed over England, the bulk of the vocational teaching having its seat in London. For the most part, it is thorough and scientific. The results are in practice satisfac tory. There is no reason to suppose that the administration of the law falls below the highest standards of other countries, either in professional argument or judicial exposition. The control of the teaching is, however, vested in various independent bodies, academic and professional. There is no direct co-ordination. There have always been persons, highly qualified to form an opinion, who have desired to see a great school of law arise in London, either affiliated to the existing University of London or forming an independent legal university, to which the lawyers of the empire and others might resort for instruction and research. Such a school, it is thought, might eventually regulate the admis sion to the profession in its various branches : and possibly give vocational teaching a more scientific bias. It is a fine ideal and may in the future be attained. One of the practical difficulties is to allay the natural suspicions of the professional bodies who now control entrance to their own profession, and are anxious not to have their own effective practical standards depreciated. Another difficulty is raised by the inevitable questions of money and site.