Achieving High Quality Solicitors’ Education
By Professor Michael Gunn, Chair, Programme Committee, The College of Legal Practice
Achieving high quality in professional legal education demands an organisation that is focused on it through its leadership, staffing and philosophy of education. The College of Legal Practice (“the College”) was established by its parent body, The College of Law in Australia. The College of Law has a long history of successful professional legal education as is recognised by its students, the law firms and other organisations that employee its students, the legal profession and the legal and higher education regulatory bodies.
The College of Legal Practice in the UK was therefore established in order to provide a new way of undertaking professional legal education. The College was created to provide education for lawyers through digital platforms. Thus, right from the start the College was clear about what it was to do and how. The objective for the College was to take advantage of the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination and provide a new way of learning that would take advantage of technology so that all students would be able successfully to engage.
The College is an alternative provider of Higher Education at professional and Masters level. It has acquired its own new degree awarding powers (“NDAPs”) This significant achievement demonstrates that it has the right ethos and culture, the right people, the right learning philosophy, and the right organisational structure, approach and processes to be successful.
The College, from the board of directors through all its staff, understands that high quality education is good business. It has established an ethos and culture that are sound foundation blocks for digital education. It has a clear student and customer focus. It is well led with a sound approach to staffing and has clear values.
Of the key blocks for achieving high quality education, the need for clarity of purpose and commitment to high quality delivery are embedded in the establishment, leadership and approach of the College.
Following that, it is essential to have people in place who have the right skills, experience and attitudes. It is clear that this approach is taken in relation not only to the appointment of teaching and supervisory staff, but also to designers, professional support staff and members of the Board. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of appointing the right staff. A successful programme commences with the right design. Those designing need to have experience of programmes at Masters level that deliver professional standard programmes that fit the requirements of the solicitors profession. They also need to understand the quality assurance requirements of a programme to be delivered in higher education, especially when it will lead to the award of a Master's degree.
Those delivering that course need to have the right skills set to be able to deliver a programme at Masters and professional level digitally to students all around the world who may have differing learning approaches and time availability. Such a programme requires professional support in a wide sense that includes not only student support but also quality assurance and other regulatory processes. This activity needs to be held together and led by people with sufficient experience, skills and the right attitude to ensure programmes are truly delivered at Masters level that meets the requirements of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The College of Legal Practice has ensured the high-quality delivery necessary not only through its appointment of staff but also through its College-wide commitment to a experiential learning philosophy. This underpins not only its developing teaching and learning strategy but also it's and crucially its entire design and delivery; echoing Kolb’s approach to experience as the source of learning and development and utilising the cycle of practice, reflection, learning and development that underpins the best practical learning.
At a number of points the importance of student support and enabling their learning has been raised. It is vital that such programmes are focused upon the student so that he or she has the best opportunity to engage fully with the programme and to be successful. The design of such a programme and its delivery constantly must have in mind how will the student engage, how will they learn and how will they be able to engage fully with the set assessments.
Further, nothing stands still, so the commitment to continuous improvement is essential to design, delivery and student support. This is reflected in a positive approach to all staff development and to appointing people at all levels so that there is also sound succession planning.
No such activity can operate solely using the skills of one institution. It is necessary that everybody within the College wishes to reflect upon the programme both at the design but also through the delivery stages. External expertise must be utilised. This has been done when there has been a need to supplement staffing at the design stage and those appointed to be supervisors are either currently in practice or have recent practice experience. Further, approval of the programmes has an external element so that there is a sharp focus placed upon the propriety of the programme, its coherence and deliverability and its potential success for the likely students engaging with it. It also ensures that there is an external view of whether the programmes are consistent with the principles applied by the College and with the programme’s stated aims and objectives. This input also ensures that there is a thorough underpinning of desire constantly to improve through reflection and practice.
Achieving and maintaining quality in education is not easy for any provider, and for our future solicitors it is essential that the learning they receive is delivered with high academic standards. The College of Legal Practice has achieved NDAPs status in a very short time which is no mean feat, demonstrating the level of rigour and leadership underpinning this organisation that I am proud to be a part of.
About Professor Michael Gunn
Professor Michael Gunn’s esteemed academic career spanned four decades, with twenty years of those in leadership positions at Law Schools and Universities. Professor Gunn was the Dean of Nottingham Law School, Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Derby and Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Staffordshire University.
Michael brings his considerable expertise to The College of Legal Practice, as Chair of our Programme Committee. This Committee has governance responsibility for all academic programmes and matters at the College. He personally champions inclusion at the College and has brought together a highly-experienced, diverse and practice-focused group of professionals on this Committee, including a student representative, that lead us to develop progressive programmes of the highest quality.