Crispin Passmore: 2017's Champion Of Diversity In The Law
Big change -- for the better -- in how the United Kingdom trains its lawyers.
Crispin Passmore (via Twitter: @CrispinPassmore)
“We may see a thousand flowers bloom.”
— Crispin Passmore
This month, I am dedicating my article to Crispin Passmore, Executive Director at the UK Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) and an unsung hero of positive legal change.
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Last week, following a protracted period of consultation, delayed implementation and general outcry from the elite, the SRA finally announced the introduction of a centralised super examination called the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE). The SQE will replace a current candidate’s need to sit through a year’s Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL),which is a course required for those who have not studied the subject of law at University and, for postgraduate law students and those coming out of a GDL, it replaces the need to sit through a year of the Legal Practice Course (LPC).
This equates to somewhere in the region of $20,000 – $40,000 of upfront costs on top of the $35,000 of University tuition fees that many UK undergraduates now rack up. Those costs are, of course, before said student has paid their rent and food bills.
The current system in the UK has two key barriers to entry that undoubtedly contribute to the profession’s lack of diversity. The first barrier is the aforementioned eye-watering upfront costs of the GDL and the LPC, and the second is the fact that UK solicitors need to complete a two-year training contract and there are a very limited number of training contracts offered by the legal market. The new two-stage examination process, which will take effect from 2020, will allow legal work experience of different varieties (for example, paralegal work) to be counted towards the qualifying requirements. It is anticipated that stage one of the SQE will be taken in advance of that work experience and will be considerably less expensive than the GDL and LPC, thereby providing candidates with a chance to work for at least two years in the industry before sitting for stage two of the examination. A “try before you buy” approach to legal training may mean considerably more people who don’t enjoy legal work will have the freedom to drop away without grimacing about the investment costs.
The legal profession should, as my fellow Above the Law columnist Jill Switzer wrote late last year, be “about personality and performance, not pedigree”. Well, I couldn’t agree more, but sadly it is still mostly about pedigree, as the upper echelons of the law are dominated by people who are obsessed with the mere fact of where people have been educated, rather than what they know and how adept they are at facing the challenges of this demanding career.
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My nephew came to me last year aged 18 and told me that following school he wanted to go and study law and he asked for my advice on how to go about it. His grades weren’t Oxbridge and, like me, he had received a state-funded education at a non-selective UK comprehensive school. Translated, this means that we attended schools with the children of people who were on benefits and, on occasion, we’d lose a year group member or two to drugs or joyriding-related tragedies. My own school got closed down four years ago, which was a travesty of justice, since it had promoted a culture of excellence in a forgotten coastal town. Nevertheless, I had to tell my nephew something I didn’t want to tell him, but was obliged to. I told him that he should do whatever it took to get a place at a Russell Group provider, a group of 24 leading Universities.
Despite the recent fashionable trend for blind CV processes in training contract applications, I am still not convinced that the market has shed its bias for exclusivity of institutions. The repugnant inner circle of pheasant shooters that guard the keys hasn’t suddenly thrown open the drawbridge. The statistics analysing the universities from which the top law firms in the UK recruit strongly back this contention up.
My nephew took my advice and rejected his non-Russell Group offer, although he didn’t wait for the University clearing system, which is a tombola of spare spots after the formal application process is settled. In a demonstration of fortitude and self-belief he, unbeknownst to me, telephoned each Russell Group University individually until one gave him an interview and then a place. Now, with the new plans in place, he will have greater flexibility in the way he that he is able to qualify.
I was beyond downhearted with the state of the entry level to the legal profession until my past firm began a six-year apprenticeship programme in 2015 and I saw the agility and quality of people coming onto that scheme. I used to supervise a lot of formal route trainees and some of the apprentices could have taught the trainees a thing or two on the attitude and enthusiasm front. The apprenticeship route is another significant and overwhelmingly positive factor re-shaping legal training.
The SRA’s announcement last week has filled me with inspiration and excitement for the credence it has given to those choosing (or needing to take) a different route to qualify as a solicitor in England & Wales.
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In the face of cataclysmic backlash from the plutocracy, Crispin Passmore is quoted as saying “popularity has never been the objective of a regulator”.
Congratulations to Crispin Passmore and his Board for such a pioneering and bold reform. I welcome our next generation of truly diverse, smart and eager lawyers to the profession.
Earlier: Elitism Puts Our Profession In Peril
Jayne Backett is a partner at Fieldfisher LLP in London specializing in banking transactions, with a particular focus on real estate financing. Fieldfisher is a 600-lawyer European law firm, with a first-class reputation in a vast number of sectors, specifically, financial institutions, funds, technology and fintech, retail, hotels and leisure, and health care. Jayne has a depth of experience in mentoring and training junior lawyers and has a passion for bringing discussions on diversity in law to the forefront. She can be reached by email at jbackett@hotmail.com, and you can follow her on Twitter: @JayneBackett.
