Research One

What we're going to cover today is nothing about the technical side of research in terms of library skills and nothing about what you might have covered in undergraduate legal research courses …

We are going beyond that to examine how you actually go about doing research in practice, ways in which you would communicate the results of that research to clients, and thoughtful approaches to the different research-related tasks and how you go about completing them in terms of a template for legal advice.

1. The Changing Nature of Legal Practice

Let‘s set a starting point for discussion … You are about to go out into an environment in terms of careers which is much more fluid and much more various than it has ever been before. You are doing the Legal Practice Course here while some law firms are arranging for its employees to have a customised course of practical legal training for admission purposes delivered in-house and subsidised by those law firms. You are competing as newly admitted solicitors with articled clerks who are doing 2 years or more of in-house practical training. I asked partners up town this week in preparation for this lecture, ‘What's your view of Legal Practice Course graduates and College of Law graduates and people who come from these places?' One reply: ‘Oh well, they're pretty good but the reality is we like the articled clerks because they're doing the work in-house, they do it over two years, they get used to our way of doing things, and we feel they have more practical experience and they can do more things.' Well, I happen to think that view is a bit narrow and outdated, but that is one attitude you're encountering in the market-place. I am not saying that's the unanimous attitude. It underplays the range of practical skills across all areas of practice which people in practical legal training course receive, as distinct from a narrower, specialised, idiosyncratic, and not always balanced exposure to practical training, which articled clerks might receive in various rotations in both smaller and larger firms.

You are also dealing with the reality that the kinds of professional careers you are going to have will change. At the moment you are becoming qualified as solicitors, but what do solicitors do? You might think you are going to head into one-person practices, suburban practices, medium-size boutique practices. You might be thinking of heading into large law firm mega-practices. You might be aiming to spend some time there and then go and work for government as a lifestyle choice or for some other reason. You might be aiming to get involved in business and be the corporate lawyer or corporate counsel. You might want to be a manager like a human resources manager and you want to be able to have the legal skills because there is so much law that relates to that aspect of your job. You might be looking for legal work in the public sector, whether as a policy adviser, drafter of legislation, or departmental in-house lawyer. You may not stay in the one job, for all sorts of reasons. So, you're dealing with a situation where what solicitors do is now across a wider level of possible career scenarios than there have ever been before. You're going out where the bit of paper you're getting from here is viewed in different ways by those who in the next couple of years are looking to employ you, and where the world is changing around you in terms of what other people getting the equivalent bits of paper are doing.