Examining the Clinical Courses

The effect is total. A student who can write about drafting and cannot draft has satisfied the assessment and acquired none of the capacity, and the Schedule's fifteen exercises never happened.

And the direction effect of chapter 340 explains why it persists. If the examination is written, rational students prepare in writing, rational teachers teach in writing, and the practical component is not merely omitted but affirmatively displaced.

The consequence for the profession is the graduate of chapter 20 who arrives at chambers unable to begin.

Why colleges do it

An answer should be fair about the reasons, because a list of complaints is weaker than a diagnosis.

Marking cost. Thirty exercises per student, individually marked, is a very large workload, and rule 11's staffing is what the college does not have.

Practitioner availability. The Schedule requires teaching in association with practising lawyers and, for paper 23, conduct by senior practitioners. That takes money or goodwill.

Facilities. Simulation needs rooms and materials; the moot needs a bench; the internship needs placements.

Comparability. A University examining thousands of students across dozens of colleges finds a written paper administratively simple and practical assessment hard to standardise.

And the absence of enforcement. Rule 22 makes the feasibility of standard clinical education an object of inspection, so the machinery exists; what has not happened is its use against colleges that examine these papers as theory.

What would fix it

Make the assessment the inspection item. Rule 22 already requires the inspector to assess the feasibility of standard clinical education. Asking to see thirty marked drafting exercises per student is a check that takes an hour and cannot be faked cheaply.

Use the internal component. Rule 12's internal marks are the natural home of practical assessment, and MU's twenty-five or forty marks are already there.

Standardise the exercises, not the answers. A University can prescribe the fifteen drafting tasks centrally while leaving the marking to the college, which addresses comparability without requiring central marking.

Attach vivas. The Schedule already provides ten marks of viva in papers 21 and 24, and a viva makes fabricated records risky, as chapter 300 shows.

And publish the scheme. Students who know that thirty marks come from three moots will moot.

A worked example

Two colleges examine paper 21.

College A sets a three hour paper: explain the essentials of a plaint; draft a notice; distinguish a sale deed from a gift deed. Students prepare from a formats book. Nobody has drafted anything before the day, and the fifteen drafting and fifteen conveyancing exercises did not occur.

College B runs the Schedule's scheme. Fifteen drafting exercises at three marks each across the semester, fifteen conveyancing exercises at three marks each, and a ten mark viva at the end on the student's own portfolio. Every student has produced thirty documents and been corrected on each.

Both report a mark out of a hundred to the University, and the University records them identically.

Ask which graduate can draft. That question is the whole of this chapter, and it is the strongest single illustration a candidate can give of an assessment defeating a reform.

Quick revision

Schedule II prescribes the assessment, not only the subject: paper 21, fifteen drafting and fifteen conveyancing exercises at three marks each plus ten for viva; paper 22, case study, viva and periodical problem solution besides written tests; paper 23, conducted by senior practitioners through simulation and case studies with practical evaluation for a significant part; paper 24, three moots at ten marks, trial observation, an internship diary and a ten mark viva.

The practice is a written paper, which converts skill training into knowledge about skill and displaces the practical work entirely.

The reasons: marking cost, practitioner availability, facilities, comparability, and non-enforcement.

The fixes: make the assessment an inspection item under rule 22; use rule 12's internal marks; standardise the exercises centrally and mark locally; attach the vivas the Schedule already provides; and publish the scheme to students.

Test yourself

1. State exactly what Schedule II prescribes for the assessment of paper 21. Not fewer than fifteen practical exercises in drafting carrying forty-five marks at three marks each, fifteen exercises in conveyancing carrying another forty-five at three marks each, and the remaining ten marks for viva voce, the course being taught by class instruction and simulation exercises preferably with the assistance of practising lawyers or retired judges.

2. Why is examining the clinical papers by written examination a breach rather than a preference? Because the Schedule itself prescribes the method and the marks, and for paper 22 provides that the examination rules of the University shall include assessment through case study, viva and periodical problem solution. Substituting a written paper departs from the instrument.

3. Give three honest reasons colleges do it anyway. The marking cost of thirty individually assessed exercises per student against the staffing rule 11 requires; the difficulty of securing practising lawyers and senior practitioners to teach papers 21, 22 and 23; and the University's need for comparability across dozens of colleges, which a written paper supplies easily.

4. Which existing rule already supplies the enforcement mechanism, and what should an inspector ask for? Rule 22, which makes the feasibility of standard clinical education one of the five heads an inspection committee must assess. An inspector should ask to see the marked practical exercises, which takes an hour and cannot be faked cheaply.