In Tuesday night’s parliamentary debate, Opposition MP Jose Herrera finally lifted the lid and briefly mentioned some of the issues which are blighting the legal profession at the learning stage, in university and ‘practice’ periods.
Dr Herrera pointed out that having 280 law students in one year, for a country of 400,000 is a bit ridiculous. He said that he was not in any way in favour of a numerus clausus, but that entry requirements should be altered to reflect the same sort of ‘difficulty’ as, for example medicine or dentistry – we could not agree more.
He says that people should not try to become lawyers because they did not make it into other courses, adding that entry requirements for mature students leave a lot to be desired. This is a very important point to make, but we also agree with Dr Herrera where he says that the personal interview stage must be more in depth, to analyse the capabilities of the prospective mature student.
Some people are admitted to the law course even though they have not passed their O-Levels and A-Levels. While this may raise eyebrows, one must also bear in mind that there are some very intelligent people out there who might have not had the chance to further their studies when they were younger, so again, one has to concur with the MP’s suggestion.
Another issue which he brought up was the ‘fake’ signatures that some law students are blessed with. To explain, some students who have relatives in the profession merely seek a rubber stamp signature for time they have spent ‘practicing’ in the law courts with a firm. He says that many times, the ‘practice’ just does not happen.
One has to have walked the corridors of the law courts to know what this particular lawyer is talking about. While it must be said that there are good and bad apples in every basket, it is a noticeable factor, in terms of there being very few young law students in court nowadays. Although the numbers have increased in the lecture rooms, those doing ‘menial’ jobs or sitting in on cases are in decline. Something is not quite right.
But this newspaper develops Dr Herrera’s argument further. Some weeks back, this newspaper had published a letter sent to all law students by the Faculty of Law, where they were warned about the dangers of taking private lessons in law. This, we feel, is quite ridiculous. Tertiary education is all about sharpening your brain and using your own intelligence and reasoning to argue in favour or against what you are being taught – that is what it is all about. Law students sitting in on parrot style private lessons is preposterous. The Faculty of Law said as much in its letter to students, and the Chamber of Advocates, in comments to this newspaper, more or less said that if a student needed private lessons in law, then he or she would not make a very good lawyer anyway... touché. These practices, excuse the pun, must be stamped out and the issues which Dr Herrera pointed out must also be tackled. Now, let’s go one further and open a whole new can of worms. While the MP deserves kudos for lifting the lid, we will attempt to rip it off completely. When is anyone going to do anything about theses which have been farmed out to other people and then paid for in cold hard cash. It is a reality, and it is a lot more widespread than anyone cares to admit. Picture it, you are in court, with your lawyer. They only qualified because they took private lessons and then got someone to write a thesis for them. One also wonders if there are any such examples sitting in parliament... probably.