SRA trials changes to training contract

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is set begin a long-awaited pilot of controversial changes to the training contract.

The organisation is set to announce the trial run, which affects the period of work-based learning now called the training contract, on Monday (15 September).

Nine firms - including Linklaters and Dickinson Dees - are thought to have signed up to test the new system after a string of delays.

Along with the nine panel firms, there will be two external assessment organisations on hand to help the smaller firms who do not have the resources to assess their students. There are also 41 volunteers who have signed up to the new programme.

The pilot of the new-look system, which included proposals that could see the route to qualification cut from two years to 16 months, was initially supposed to take place in September 2007. It forms part of the SRA's plans to open up the legal professional by allowing people to qualify as a solicitor without a formal training contract.

The organisation was forced to announced last May that it had delayed piloting the changes, with the body at the time citing the challenge of creating a model 'which is robust enough not to be seen as a 'second-class' route to qualification'.

The proposals came in for serious criticism from a number of City law firms who argued that the reforms risked lowering the educational standards of newly-qualified solicitors.

In September last year the SRA approved plans to separate the electives from the rest of the Legal Practice Course (LPC) - effectively paving the way for students to start their training contracts halfway through the course.

The decision means the LPC becomes a two-part qualification, with students unable to qualify until they have completed the electives but theoretically able to study both stages of the LPC at different institutions or take the electives during their training contract.