Training and Development of In-house Lawyers

The issue of education within the professions has become one of pressing importance within the last 20 years as the professions have become subject to increasing specialisation, faster rates of social, technological and knowledge-base changes, and a more sophisticated and critical public. Most professions have had to re-evaluate their basic professional training in terms of preparing entrants for working in a changing profession, and in particular have had to consider the option of more extensive continuing or advanced professional training.1 Equally, the education providers or partners in professional training have been forced to re-evaluate their contribution in these areas.2 For example, a significant development during the period of the study was the launch by the Law Society of a system of mandatory continuing education for newly-qualified solicitors, involving credits for courses taken from a range of specified courses within three years of qualification (Page, 1985). Other jurisdictions have also recently opted for mandatory continuing legal education. Although these developments were too recent to be covered specifically in the research interviews, the author’s interest in continuing education was reflected in some of the issues covered in the research on in-house lawyers. What were their views of the suitability of basic training, of their need for, and experience of, continuing education, of their training needs compared with those of outside lawyers?