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Despite decades of diversity and widening participation initiatives, access to elite professions for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds remains a troublingly persistent issue. Degree apprenticeships present an alternative to the traditional university pathway and an opportunity to increase social mobility into professional occupations. Yet, uptake of this pathway has so far been from more advantaged individuals. This article explores the dispositions of key stakeholders towards alternative pathways. It asks whether professional apprenticeships are perceived as legitimate and, if not, what are the likely consequences? Using the solicitors' profession in England as a pertinent case, interviews with 23 participants on the degree apprenticeship and university pathways were asked about their social and educational backgrounds, exploring the influences on their career and pathway decision making. The analysis demonstrates differing perceptions of risk and legitimacy among those from different social and educational backgrounds, with implications for equity, inequality and social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘no contact’ rule is a professional obligation which prohibits a lawyer from directly communicating with the client of an opposing lawyer, apart from certain exceptions. Breach of the rule can result in disciplinary action by a relevant regulator, with sanctions including cancellation of the lawyer’s practising certificate. This article argues that the current formulation of the rule in the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules lacks clarity in several key respects, resulting in uncertainty regarding its scope and operation. Further, the rationales commonly provided for the rule provide little guidance regarding its appropriate scope. This article provides practical proposals to clarify the rule, which would benefit solicitors, clients and the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project Future is a community-based holistic mental health and wellbeing service for young people aged 16-25 who have experiences of the criminal justice system and/or are affected by serious youth violence. The project is situated in Haringey, North London, one of the ten most deprived wards in the UK where the community experience multiple health, social and racial inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its context the decision of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England and Wales to abandon before the event regulation of lower court trial advocacy. Although solicitors will continue to acquire rights of audience on qualification, they will no longer be required to undertake training or assessment in witness examination, by contrast with other, competing, legal professions. Their opportunities to acquire competence outside the classroom will remain limited. The paper first explores this context and its implications for the three key factors of rights to perform, competence and regulatory accountability. The current regulatory system is then displayed as a Hohfeldian network of rights and duties held in tension between stakeholders intended to inhibit the incompetent exercise of rights to conduct trial advocacy. The SRA's proposal weakens this tension field and threatens the competitive position of solicitors. The paper therefore finally offers a radical alternative reconceptualisation of rights of audience in terms of Waldron's 'responsibility rights' as a solution, albeit one with significant implications for the individual advocate. This model, applicable globally, is closer to notions of societal good and professionalism than to those of the competitive market, whilst inhibiting incompetent performance and remediating the SRA's approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Solomon Islands Public Solicitor's Office is established by the Constitution. The role of its officers is to provide legal advice and assistance not only in relation to state law, but also in respect of customary laws and institutions. In the course of providing legal aid, numerous dilemmas arise as to the best way in which to negotiate these complex issues, taking into account the prevailing culture. The 40th anniversary of the Journal of Legal Pluralism presents an ideal occasion to consider legal pluralism from the perspective of those whose daily work puts them at the forefront of the interface between the state and customary legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses teaching reflection skills as a means to inculcate students' capacity to contribute to justice. Arising out of understandings of professionalism, the rule of law, as well as model codes of conduct for solicitors, lawyers have an ethical duty to contribute to building the justice of law and the legal system. Learning how to reflect is an essential part of being able to fulfil this duty, and clinical legal education as a method within legal education is an effective means to teach students how to reflect. They learn how to deal with 'disorienting moments' and to make sense of the complexity of legal practice through a process of self-reflection and reflection on law and the legal system. The article discusses the range of ways in which reflection can be taught to emphasise the integration of values, emotions, thinking and analytical skills in forming lawyers who are well- rounded lawyers. A growth mindset which recognises the ability of brains to constantly change and grow is a radical and positive development in our understanding of intelligence which supports the nurturing of lawyers' ability to reflect and continue to fulfil their ethical duty to work towards justice in some form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Margaret Howie Strang Hall was the first woman in Scotland, and the youngest woman in the UK, to try to become a lawyer through the same formal process open to her male contemporaries. This examination of Hall's attempt aims to set it in context, using contemporary court documents and newspaper reports, while expanding on what is known of her life. Hall's story is an important one in the struggle for equal professional opportunities and her experience in the Scottish legal system provides a counterpoint to the better-known English examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent debate concerning changes in the examination for entry to the solicitors' profession have seen the law schools present themselves as being in a vulnerable position – victims of a controlling and regulatory legal profession. The debate has also revived concern about the dichotomy between teaching law as a liberal arts subject and teaching law as vocational training. This legal history review provides a snapshot of the discourses concerning academic legal education, what was perceived as desirable and whether this was achieved in practice. This review teaches us that academia has had greater power and control over the nature and role of legal education than it ever really wanted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the future of the conversion course (Common Professional Examination/Graduate Diploma in Law) taken by non-law graduates (NLGs) seeking to qualify as solicitors and barristers in England and Wales. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Bar Standards Board (BSB) are changing the paths to qualification, which for NLGs commences currently with this course. University law schools are particularly unsettled by (i) the impact of the SRA's move to a centralised exam; (ii) the deregulation of courses including the conversion course; and (iii) the divergence in professional requirements. This article analyses the changes and the likely responses to them taking account of the factors which have influenced the development of the conversion course as it is today. These have been, and, it is argued, will increasingly be, market-influenced decisions to ensure a supply of "good" graduates. The analysis is juxtaposed with the agenda for diversity, this being a key driver of regulatory changes. It is argued that a free market of course providers points to new and varied courses, but there is no logic or factors on which it can be confidently suggested that the reforms will lead to greater diversity in the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1941, State Solicitor for Kildare Ronald Brown was charged with fourteen counts of gross indecency. The court records and his unusual life before and after the trial suggest that there is a story worth examining. In independent Ireland, the state was particularly concerned with adult same-sex desiring men corrupting teen boys. Brown's government position, his lover's age, and their intergenerational relationship all shaped the outcomes of this case. Although gross indecency cases ruined the lives of the implicated, including Solicitor Brown and his alleged lover Leslie Price, a close reading of the case material reveals a deep affection between a late adolescent boy and an adult man that would otherwise be invisible in a forcibly closeted mid-century Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a speech by Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins on nationwide injunctions. Topics discussed include his experience in the Texas Attorney General's office, the federal government's view to treat administrative regulations subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA).

The Legal Services Act 2007 effected major changes in the disciplinary system for solicitors in England and Wales. Both the practice regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and a disciplinary body, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, were reconstituted as independent bodies and given new powers. Our concern is the impact of the Act on the disciplinary system for solicitors. Examination of this issue involves consideration of changes to regulatory institutions and the mechanics of practice regulation. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality, empirical evidence drawn from disciplinary cases handled by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2015 is used to explore potentially different conceptions of discipline informing the work of the regulatory institutions. The conclusion considers the implications of our findings for the future of the professional disciplinary system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two major regulatory changes are affecting the provision of undergraduate legal education in England and Wales. On the one hand, the Qualifying Law Degree is being deregulated, meaning law schools are free to make significant changes to how and what they teach. On the other hand, higher education in England has seen a significant overhaul through the creation of the Office for Students, which treats students as consumers. Now more than ever, law schools need to ask themselves existential questions which will not only test their continued relevance or indeed viability within the 'market' for higher education, but also the status of the discipline of law as a whole. The regulatory landscape may indeed present a significant threat, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on what law schools are for, and consequently what changes could result from the academic freedom that comes with deregulation. Whilst different law schools will interpret their mission differently, they should caution against either generalised inertia or succumbing to an outcomes-oriented provision that simply prepares students for the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Instead, law schools will find their proper purpose in critical reflection and academic self-grounding, providing undergraduate students with a 'question everything' mentality, and showing them that law is something to be experienced and not merely learnt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses interview data from 24 long-qualified family law solicitors working in private practice traditional settings in the Midlands and North of England. Experiences and perceptions of change are explored in order to contribute to contemporary understandings of practitioner willingness to innovate in the new legal services landscape, particularly as family law solicitors have been called upon to adopt new practices such as unbundling to survive. Three 'types' of emergent identities are identified amongst the sample respondents. These are linked to attachment to traditional role orientations, values and boundaries, as well as practice settings and perception of opportunities and threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]