Liberty and the Legal Services Act: the new qualifying regime for solicitors in England

Ching, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9815-8804, 2025. Liberty and the Legal Services Act: the new qualifying regime for solicitors in England. European Journal of Legal Education, 6 (2), pp. 451-477. ISSN 1684-1360

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Abstract

Seeking to assure consistent standards, and to promote diversity, the solicitors’ profession in England has adopted two different approaches to qualification, terminating in a capstone examination. One is by a funded government apprenticeship of 5-6 years, and the other is almost entirely open. Candidates in the latter may in principle choose how to prepare for the examinations and compile the necessary work experience in up to four different organisations. This article shows how the two routes are characterised by different concepts of ‘liberty’. Further, it uses Fraser’s axis of recognition and retribution and Young’s concept of oppression to interrogate the extent to which each is capable of contributing to a statutory obligation to promote diversity in the profession. Whilst there are overlaps, it concludes that, in principle, an apprentice achieves qualification because of their job, but a candidate in the open route may need to do so despite their job.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	European Journal of Legal Education
Creators:	Ching, J.
Publisher:	Routledge
Date:	23 September 2025
Volume:	6
Number:	2
ISSN:	1684-1360
Identifiers:	Number Type 2260857 Other
Rights:	The European Journal of Legal Education (EJLE) is an open-access journal which means the articles are freely available online for any individual author to download and use the providing address. The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License which allows the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions that is permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Law School
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	23 Oct 2024 10:27
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2025 11:16
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52459

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