Chief Justice of the new NSW Wales on War Pathologies after lawyers challenge practical legal training courses

The best judge of the NSW has prefigured a historical review of the legal training after lawyers throughout the state have launched existing courses as an expensive and irrelevant “Ticking Box exercise”.

In an extraordinary intervention this yearThe supreme judge Andrew Bell expressed “profound concern” for the “extremely high” cost of practical legal formation (PLT), which is a prerequisite for the practice of the law. The formation begins after a lawyer in grass has completed their degree.

Bell wrote to thousands of lawyers from the new South Wales in February, urging them to complete a PLT survey to “inform possible reforms”.

He said the results of the survey, released on Monday“He generated some series concerns about the cost and quality of the available PLT”.

“Over 2500 responses have been received by the cohort of practitioners recently allowed and over 2000 by the supervisors,” Bell said.

“Only 43 percent of recent graduates considered that the assignments were practical and relevant to career with only 40 % considering that the teaching methods were satisfactory. Only 13 % of recent graduates believed that the course had a reasonable price.”

PLT takes 15 weeks full -time and there is a separate work experience component. Most of the interviewees (74 percent) “agreed or strongly agreed on the fact that the component of the work experience … it was useful for building knowledge and practical skills”, said Bell.

The survey was conducted by the Independent Urbis Research Agency at the request of the Legal Profession Adision Board (LPAB), which regulates the admission of graduates to practice the law.

Urbis declared in his report that “the PLT has been reported to be an exercise of touching, without relevance for legal practice”. The commissions of the course of about $ 10,000 could be “prohibitive” and are not “always seen as a value”.