The Construction Of The Modern British Legal Education

British legal education system has a long history,because of its unique training mode which lasts over six or seven hundred years.However,with the great change of economy and society,the traditional legal education system faces dual challenges.Since the midden of the Nineteenth Century,a series of attempts have been made to establish a modern system of legal education,but have limited success.1964,Gerard Gardner who advocated the reform of legal education became Lord Chancellor.In December 19 th,1967,he set up Ormrod Committee to promote reform.In March,1971,the committee submitted a report to Congress to reform British legal education.The reform can be regarded as the most significant change in the history of legal education and profession in the UK.Therefore,this paper surrounds the text of Ormrod report to analysis and display the change of British modern legal education system.Full-text content includes:The introduction first explains the significance of the topic,British legal education faced two key issues since Nineteenth Century,and only Ormrod report responded to this two key issues.Then it reviews literature concerned about Ormrod report,finally it explains the content and structure of the article.Chapter one mainly discusses the legal education before the implementation of the the report.Before the implementation of the Ormrod report,the reform guided by the1846 report had already put forward many practical proposals and made someprogress,such as the project for a “General School of Law”,the development of professional qualifying and the establishment of the professional school.But the present situation of university in low status had not changed,some further measures should still to be taken.In addition,the establishment of the professional school to some extent changed the situation of lack of public education,but formed a competitive relationship with University Law School which foreshadowed the competition of the organization right of the professional stage in Ormrod reform.Chapter two mainly introduces Mr.Justice Ormrod's reform concept and the composition of the committee.The Ormrod committee consisted of 14 members,one of whom was a professor of medicine,and the others were legal person,mainly from a higher education institution,barrister professional group and solicitors professional group.The first idea of Sir Ormrod was to improve the status of institutions of higher education,the second idea was to set the vocational stage between academic stage and pupillage stage.The first section of the chapter three lists the major reform initiatives of the report,including the implementation of the three stages of legal education,how to carry on the different stages specifically,and the transformation of the two types of lawyers.The second section explains the two core issues of the reform: which institution provide vocational courses and the support from public funds.Chapter four is the evaluation of the report and the improvement of British legal education in the future.The existence of the committee is a bridge,a communication platform,the committee undertook a difficult task that reconcile the relationship of academic and practice.As a turning point in the legal education,the achievement of Ormrod reform can not be ignored,mainly including two aspects: Firstly,try to accomplish popularization of legal education.Secondly,reinforce the trend of the combination of barrister and solicitor.After Ormrod reform,British legal education has made many active or passive adjustments because of the development of economy and social change,but generally speaking,the change is only in detail,never beyond the frame set by Ormrod report.In conclusion,I will summarizes the contents of this paper,explain the reasonswhy legal education system which established by Ormrod report is called the "modern" legal education.And according to the American scholar,Professor Green's reform opinion: the establishment of British modern legal education system,will be the British legal education,legal occupation groups and the British government's long-term task.