Links I Liked [Legal Edition]
1. Wither LPC? Apparently the Legal Practice Course is on its last legs. Not surprising and frankly in my view very overdue. When former students tell me that the level of detail is similar to what was achieved in one of my modules, that indicates me there is no real need for the course. As for the argument put forward by the Law Society that with mandatory exams instead of the course "poorer students will be worse off" can someone please explain me how not having the expense of the LPC (and eventually accompanying debt) would make life more difficult for disadvantaged students. My father studied for both his law degrees while working odd jobs and was not exactly well off during that time. Not having the expense of an LPC certainly helped his career.
Contrary to what people might expect I am actually in favour of the Competence Statement of Solicitors which calls for no approved pathways or required courses. This forces Law Schools to be more competitive, innovative and justify their own existence based on merit instead of privilege.
2. Solicitors and barristers among professionals least likely to be replaced by robots, research reveals. Possibly true, but we certainly won't need as many. It would be interesting to see how the profession ages in the next few years, i.e. checking the age of the average barrister/solicitor. Is it going up or down? If up, faster or slower than the average population?
3. ...Related with the previous one: Too many graduates, not enough jobs (in the US at least)? As I was told recently by a Head of School when everyone claims their numbers are going up we are either at the peak or post-peak with people window dressing and hiding the holes in their recruitment. Recruitment numbers in the US went down over 30% in a few years and it is a question of time until it starts happening in the UK as well. A 30% drop in the UK legal education market would mean 6,000 fewer students per year. In other words, probably close to 50% of law schools would become unsustainable.
4. Fascinating write up on smart and not-so-smart contracts. For the technically inclined. Particularly valuable for the comment about teaching programming language(s)/basic computer science in law degrees, something which mirrors my views on this.