Abstract

Inspired by the author’s own experience of providing legal education in legal practice, this research seeks to explore legal education in UK law firms. Just as surveys have been completed that explore the extent and nature of legal education in UK law schools, this survey will seek to understand the extent and nature of legal education in legal practice. As such, it will be the first survey in the UK to do so.

The existing legal education survey data was largely born out of a desire to obtain “hard data” (Harris and Jones, 1997) as to the nature and extent of teaching and learning patterns within law schools. Anecdotally there appears to have been a growth during the last decade both in legal education offered by further education institutions and also by law firms, yet the absence of “hard data” has meant it has been impossible to say whether these are isolated incidents or part of a genuine shift.

The behaviour of law firms in this respect has been of particular importance given the potentially radical reforms that have been proposed for legal education in England and Wales during the last five years.