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From lawyer to solicitor

Professional Legal Training and Continued Professional Legal Training, a road to professional competence

Introduction

As of 1989 there has been a training course regulated by law[1] for academically trained lawyers[2] so that they can become solicitors. This training course takes up roughly three years and is divided into three parts: Professional Legal Training (hereinafter: PLT), Continued Professional Legal Training (further: CPLT) and working in a lawyers’ office under the supervision of a principal (training on the job). Below I will deal with all three aspects of the necessary training for (young) solicitors separately.

Professional Legal Training

Professional Legal Training (PLT) as a rule starts immediately after the swearing in as a solicitor in the district where the traineeship takes place. So when starting PLT, young lawyers are in fact solicitors be it still conditional[3]. PLT consists of a combined training and working course of about nine months. In everyday practice this means that once a week courses are followed for one day whereas the remaining part of the week one is actually active as solicitor in the office of a firm. Firms may differ strongly depending on the kind of firm and the practice that belongs to it.

Firms can be roughly divided into the following types:

• small (<5 solicitors); mixed practice (for instance: labour law, family law and rent law); both paying clients (private persons and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)) and assigned clients[4] ;
• small; mixed practice; only paying clients (private persons and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs));
• small; specialist practice (for instance: building law); paying clients (private and business);
• medium (5 – 60 solicitors); mixed practice (for instance: labour law, commercial law and bankruptcy law); both paying clients (private persons and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)) and assigned clients;
• medium (5 – 60 solicitors); commercial; specialist (for instance: Intellectual Property);
• large (>60 solicitors); commercial; multidisciplinary (often combined with civil law notaries); accent on business clients; location often large cities in the western part of the Netherlands;
• large: commercial, international; exclusively large business (international) clients; part of English or American large law firms; often business law and mergers & acquisitions[5]; location exclusively large cities in the West of Holland;

In small and medium size firms trainees[6] will meet real clients very quickly, so become involved in actual cases, whereas trainees at large firms often have to follow an extensive internal instruction and training program before they will actually be active in the practice[7]. It may be clear that the various types of firms differ strongly as regards to culture of the organization. It would lead too far to go into that now but graduated lawyers who wish to become solicitors should do well and make sure what organization culture fits their own wishes and personality characteristics best in order for them to be given their full value within the chosen organization[8]. I will come back to the filling in of the practical work under the supervision of a principal below. Now first to the contents of Professional Legal Training. Professional  Legal Training has existed, as mentioned above since 1989 and through these years the curriculum has remained the same for the greater part. This could hardly have been otherwise as the starting point with regard to the aims of PLT, CPLT and traineeship (as paid in-service training) have remained the same: a solicitor must be trained so widely in the first stage of his professional development, the phase on the way to professional expertise, that, after obtaining his traineeship certification – on average after about three years – he must be considered capable of practicing completely independently and (in a manner of speaking) on all legal fields as a solicitor. It may be clear that three years do not suffice for mastering all components that make up a solicitor – there are no less than twenty-five specializations, but three years of combined training/practicing under the supervision of an experienced solicitor, the principal, must be sufficient for being capable of handling a not too complex mixed practice.

The theoretical part of the PLT consists of procedural law (core business) and ‘reading’ annual accounts in addition to a general introduction (rules of conduct, ethical rules and financed legal aid). Procedural law is divided into Law of Civil Procedure, Law of Administrative Procedure and Law of Criminal Procedure. In addition to the theoretical part of the PLT curriculum, attention is also paid to skills.  This part, which is called Work Experience, consists of skills aimed at: ‘working in court’; ‘working with the client’ and ‘working with solicitors’.

Curriculum Professional Legal Training[9]:

PLT has as its educational goals[10]:

•  ‘Trainees are capable after having received Professional Legal Training of advising  and litigating [the two core activities of the bar: Rules of Procedure] in simple administrative law, penal law and civil law cases, if needed in consultation with their principals.’
•  ‘After having received Professional Legal Training trainees will show to have an insight as regards not complex financial and economic aspects of a specific case.’
•  ‘Trainees are capable after having received Professional Legal Training of making the initial weighing up of the legal and other relevant aspects of a specific case. In case he cannot make these considerations independently, he will submit such aspects of a case to his principal, colleague or an other experienced solicitor.’

Continued Professional Legal Training

Continued Professional Legal Training consists of a number of compulsory courses – nationally and locally[11] - directly following Professional  Legal Training. As of 2006, a trainee may choose freely from the courses offered by external training institutes that offer courses in the field of CPLT. Many Post Academic Institutions of the legal departments of universities offer such courses. For 2006 there are only two institutions in this field. Opening up CPLT to the market to other tenders has ensured that the options for trainees have become much bigger. Owing to this trainees are capable of opting for the course that fits their own (office) practice best. When trainees after having passed PLT have also fulfilled their CPLT obligations then the local Supervisory Board in their own district will hand out to them their traineeship certifications. With this trainees have become competent and independently operating solicitors. As of that point in time, they will have to keep their skills up to date by obtaining at least sixteen study points[12] per year (Permanent Education and Training)

Training on the job

As said before trainees do practical work in addition to studying as from the moment of their being sworn in. Depending on the kind of office, they will practice as a solicitor more or less from the very beginning, be it under the supervision of a principal. Working in combination with studying, under the supervision of an experienced coach, the principal, is a particularly strong training model. In this manner, what has been learned can always be put into practice immediately. In this manner law will really come to life for trainees. Trainees will actually apply theory to practice, which is not what happens at universities, and often also for the benefit of a real client. The principal is very important in this process. He is always able to give feedback on the training and the way in which the acquired knowledge is applied. The relationship trainee/principal guarantees an optimum training situation in which the skills and competencies[13] required for the profession of solicitor can be developed up to the necessary level.

Conclusion

The bar has a set of unique training equipment whereby learning and practicing the acquired knowledge is combined in a ‘route to professional competence’ (PLT + CPLT) which will then become permanent “maintenance of professional competence’ (Permanent Training). The road to professional competence is taken with the help of an effective ‘student/journeyman system’ in the form of the trainee/principal relationship. This training model that originates in the Late Middle Ages has not lost any of its luster yet and will provide in the future well trained and professionally competent solicitors who are capable of counseling all kinds of clients and their extremely diverse legal problems.

© Prof. Dr. R.C.H. van Otterlo,
Head Implementation Legislation and Regulations Netherlands Bar and Associate Professor on Organization of legal service at Amsterdam University.
March 2008

A more extended version of this article was published in Ars Aequi, March 2007

[1] See Advocatenwet (Counsel Act) in Vademecum Advocatuur (Reference Book for the Bar), Part ‘Legislation & Regulations’.

[2] I expressly use the term ‘academically trained lawyers’ here as there are now also lawyers trained at Higher Vocational Colleges thereby achieving Bachelorships in Law on higher vocational level. They do not have access to the Bar just like that as they do not have the so-called ‘Civil Effect’ and access to the so-called ‘gown professions’: A.F.M. Dorresteijn and R.C.H. van Otterlo, ‘Bachelor-Master structure and access to legal professions: an update’. Ars Aequi 55 (2006) 5, page 389-394.

[3] Although arbitrarily, my typology is a useful, practical and realistic classification. A different and widely used typology is the one always used in the standard work: De stand van de advocatuur (Update on the Bar) as this is annually published by the Koninklijke Staatsdrukkerij (KSU) (Her Majesty’s  Stationary Office)

[4] Assigned clients are clients who on the basis of their income are eligible for financed legal aid. That is to say that legal aid will be compensated to them out of public funds, with the exception of a minor deductible (see the website of the Legal Aid Board, www.rvr.org)

[5] I use the English term mergers & acquisitions here on purpose as solicitors’ practices that mainly occupy themselves herewith are in most cases international practices. In Dutch we use the terms ‘fusies & overnames’.

[6] Trainee is the customary term used by the Bar for a solicitor that does not have a traineeship certification, (yet).

[7] See i.a. Vera Spaans, ‘Andere kantoren zullen volgen met inhuisopleiding’, (Other firms will follow with training on the job) Advocatenblad n° 13, 29 September 2006, pages 594-597.

[8] See for organization characteristics within the Bar i.a. R.C.H. van Otterlo and J.H. Dijkstra, Management & Organisatie binnen de professionele juridische dienstverlening. Een inleiding, Den Haag: Boom Juridische uitgevers, 2006  (An Introduction to Management & Organization within the professional legal service, published by Boom Legal Publishers, The Hague (The Netherlands) in 2006).

[9] See for an extensive description of the PLT Curriculum: Opleidingsgids Beroepsopleiding Advocatuur (Training Guide Professional  Legal Training), The Hague (The Netherlands), Department of Training Netherlands Bar on www.advocatenorde.nl

[10] See for an extensive description of the PLT Curriculum: Opleidingsgids Beroepsopleiding Advocatuur (Training Guide Professional  Legal Training), The Hague (The Netherlands), Department of Training Netherlands Bar on www.advocatenorde.nl

[11] Both the national Bar and the nineteen local bars require a number of study points within the framework of the CPLT. One point equals one contact hour of training.

[12] One study point equals one contact hour of training.

[13] A more extensive description of the competencies required for practicing as a solicitor, see i.a. R.C.H. van Otterlo and J.H. Dijkstra, Management & Organisatie binnen de professionele juridische dienstverlening. Een inleiding, Den Haag: Boom Juridische uitgevers, 2006  (An Introduction to Management & Organization within the professional legal service, published by Boom Legal Publishers, The Hague (The Netherlands) in 2006)