Collette Paterson: The key quality to qualify as a professional

Published on Sunday 5 April 2009 20:09

YOU went to law school, studied for the diploma, did your time as a trainee and emerged triumphant. You now represent clients whose livelihoods or homes could hang on what advice you give them. Your lawyering is responsible stuff – ergo, you are a professional, right?

If you were as lucky as I was to have attended the recent Scottish Legal Awards, you will have watched Dougie Vipond dish out gongs to some of the best outfits (and by that I mean businesses, although there was many a sharp suit in sight) in Scotland. But was their success due to professionalism at its very best?

Every year, legal providers from the different Celtic legal jurisdictions come together for the Celts Conference to share ideas in best educational practice. This year's event, held at Centre for Professional and Legal Studies at the University of Strathclyde, centred on the theme of what professionalism is and how educationalists can teach it to the next generation – before many of them have set foot in a law firm.

When you try to break the term professionalism down, it becomes many things. A useful starting point was Law Society of England and Wales president Paul Marsh being quoted by keynote speaker Melissa Hardee, referring to the "golden thread" that weaves through every strand of professionalism and what solicitors do: integrity.

Over the course of the day, different perspectives on what this actually means were thrown into the mix: respect for our colleagues; prompt dealings with and good service to customers; ethical behaviour and abidance with the code of conduct; lawyers representing the Scottish legal profession in their private life.

So, displaying professionalism might be as much of a sine qua non for lawyers as dropping Latin phrases into sentences. But even if you can nail it down as a concept, how do you teach it?

The key point, it was agreed, is that there is a necessary process of internalisation for the student. Diploma students can be taught ethics and be turned away from classes if they are late, but it is only when the penny drops within that they will start to display the qualities that will make them a good lawyer, including being professional.

Having hovered around the sign-up sheet for the afternoon sessions for a while, I definitely picked a good 'un – I found myself in the thick of an interesting debate on the regulatory structures of universities and professional bodies, and how these might assist students in their understanding of what professionalism means for Scottish lawyers.

And so, despite chuckles emanating from behind the partition, the discussion on regulatory structures was, for me, the win of the day.

The Law Society of Scotland cannot regulate anyone other than its solicitor members, but other jurisdictions discussed their earlier involvement and regulation of lawyers-to-be from the point at which they embark upon the vocational stage of training.

Discussion turned at this point to instances of plagiarism and other acts students may be disciplined for at university – should these be referred to the professional body or regulator when the offender is on the route to qualification as a solicitor? If so, would this apply to the academic stage of training or simply the vocational stage? And when would be regulator act on this information in setting standards for entry to the profession?

This last question was one posed by the Society's Education and Training Committee in its latest consultation on legal education, The Way Forward. A hot issue, the Law Society of Scotland continues to look at it.

Melissa Hardee set the tone for the conference by suggesting the difficulty of defining professionalism and teaching the quasi-undefinable. By the end of the day, minds were ticking and I sloped somewhat guiltily down the road to my home aware that other delegates were taking planes, trains and automobiles back to their jurisdictions.

With the conference notes posted on a Wiki, it is hoped the discussion will evolve over the weeks that follow despite the distance between our home territories.

The Joint Forum for Legal Education later this year sees the professional bodies from these jurisdictions meeting specifically and being hosted, again, in Caledonia – I hope the Celts can live up to the ideas that came out of this year's Celts.

&#149 Collette Paterson is deputy the director (education and training) at the Law Society of Scotland.