LETR report delayed

Legal Education and Training Review’s recommendations are still to be finalised despite being already weeks behind schedule.

Due to the “weight of evidence” and “the importance and complexity” of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) the research team has been given more time to finalise the report, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said in a statement.

The deadline has been subject to several subtle extensions over the past few months, with the research team saying that the report would not be released in December as initially scheduled because it had to be submitted to the regulators first.

The report was expected to reach the regulators on the original December deadline and be published by mid-January. The LETR website still states that final recommendations will be made in December 2012.

The review, under the impetus of steering panel co-chairs Dame Janet Gaymer and Sir Mark Potter, has been monitored closely by the profession since it began in June 2011.

Touted by some commentators as the “biggest shake-up” in legal education and training since the Ormrod Report in 1971, the review kicked off by proposing a raft of “radical” changes to stimulate sector involvement, and it certainly worked.

Over the past year and a half lawyers, law teachers, students and policy makers have waited to see whether any of the more radical suggestions will make it to the final report, such as scrapping the qualifying law degree and a softening of the distinctions between, and definitions of, the vocational side of training.

The objective of the review is to ensure that the legal education and training system advances the regulatory objectives of the Legal Services Act 2007, in particular it aims to protect and promote the interests of consumers and ensure an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession.

Described as a “moving target” by one research team member last summer, the ever-changing nature of the legal services market has inevitably thrown up a range of challenging unforeseeables, for the research to factor into their findings.

The SRA has not confirmed a revised publication date.