The significance of work allocation in the professional apprenticeship of solicitors

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Ching, J. ORCID: 0000-0002-9815-8804, 2012. The significance of work allocation in the professional apprenticeship of solicitors. Studies in Continuing Education, 34 (1), pp. 1-14. ISSN 0158-037X

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2012.658769

Abstract

It is a peculiarity of the solicitors’ profession that it has historically relied on methods of pre-qualification ‘training’ by way of apprenticeship and that an entirely respectable non-graduate route into the profession remains. In a political context, however, where the profession is called upon positively to demonstrate its standards of performance, the professional regulator seeks to attach a competence framework to the existing model; shifting the focus from how the trainee learns to what the trainee learns. This paper will explore the period of traineeship from the perspective of the trainees themselves, drawing on two small qualitative studies, focussing on the fundamental context factor of the allocation and structuring of their work. In the first study the context for this evaluation is the set of outcomes being tested by the professional regulator and in the second, the perceptions of qualified individuals looking back at their apprenticeship, The paper concludes that there remains work for the profession to do not only in fostering supportive and expansive apprenticeships, but in attending, however, supportive the surrounding environment, to the work being carried out by trainees and its relationship with the work carried out by newly qualified solicitors.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Studies in Continuing Education

Creators:

Ching, J.

Publisher:

Routledge

Place of Publication:

Abingdon

Date:

2012