Written answers

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Department of Justice and Equality

Legal Services Regulation

Photo of Tommy BroughanTommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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87. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality her plans to give university faculties of law a direct role in providing full educational and work qualifications for student solicitors and barristers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19196/16]

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 provides a new framework to deal with the area of legal professional education including in terms of who provides it, who has access to it, and what professional qualifications may apply. This combines regular reporting obligations with the undertaking of a comprehensive review of the issues concerned by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority. That review will be open to all stake-holders including, on the delivery side, universities and other third-level providers of legal professional education.

As a starting point, section 13 of the 2015 Act provides that the new Regulatory Authority may, and where required by the Act, shall, keep under review and make recommendations in respect of the admission requirements of the legal professions under their respective bodies and the availability and quality of such education and training. This will also take into account the curriculum arrangements for the provision of clinical legal education and the teaching of legal ethics, negotiation skills, alternative dispute resolution and advocacy and the methods by which, and the persons by whom, such education and training is provided.

The new Legal Services Regulatory Authority will also be obliged to report on the admissions policies of the legal professions within four months of the end of each financial year. Under section 33 of the 2015 Act this report shall specify the number of persons admitted to each of the legal professions during the given year. It will also contain an assessment as to whether or not, having regard for the demand for the services of practising solicitors and barristers and the need to ensure an adequate standard of education and training for persons admitted to practice, the number of persons so admitted in that year "is consistent with the public interest in ensuring the availability of such services at a reasonable cost". A copy of this report will be laid, by the Minister, before each House of the Oireachtas.

In addition to these underlying functions, the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority has been given the specific task of preparing, with the support of a public consultation process, what amounts to a comprehensive report to the Minister in relation to "the education and training (including on-going training) arrangements in the State for legal practitioners, including the manner in which such education and training is provided". This report is to be provided to the Minister within two years of the new Authority's establishment and under the detailed parameters set out in section 34 (3) of the 2015 Act. It will contain "a review of the existing arrangements relating to the education and training of legal practitioners" and make such recommendations as considered appropriate in relation to the arrangements that, in the opinion of the Authority, should be in place for the provision of such education and training. This is to include "the accreditation of bodies to provide such education and training and the reforms or amendments, whether administrative or legislative, that are required to facilitate those arrangements".

I would also draw attention to Section 34 (3) (c) of the Act which lays out the specific areas of recommendation that are to be dealt with under the review process. These are to include, among other matters, the appropriate standards of education and training for legal professional qualifications; arrangements necessary to monitor those standards; the scope and content of the curriculum for the courses concerned; standards required for the award of legal professional qualifications, and arrangements that would facilitate the minimisation of duplication and consequent expense incurred in the taking of overlapping examinations in legal subjects.

Under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority is, therefore, set to regularly monitor, and to undertake a comprehensive review, of legal professional education that will include stake-holder participation in the relevant public consultation process. These reforming measures provide us, under the terms and objectives of the 2015 Act, with a ready-made opportunity to shape and reform the provision of legal professional education in the State for the years to come.

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