Legal ethics in the academic curriculum: correspondent’s report from the United Kingdom

The legal profession and legal academics in England and Wales continue to debate the value of compulsory legal ethics teaching and assessment within the academic stage of training. Learning and teaching of legal ethics has developed rapidly in recent years, but it remains an optional part of most law school academic curricula and is often left to professional conduct training at the vocational stage. Economides and Rogers' report to the Law Society, Preparatory Ethics Training for Future Solicitors, was published in March 2009. They recommended that 'awareness of and commitment to legal values and the moral context of the law, [be] mandatory in undergraduate law degrees'. They advised that an outcomes based approach be taken so as to permit flexibility but also that the professional bodies should provide assistance to law schools to introduce legal ethics teaching to law students. Their recommendations also extended to the vocational stage of training and postqualification CPD mandatory ethics training as well. The Law Society's Education and Training Committee commissioned Professor Andy Boon to consider and develop a model curriculum for legal ethics at the initial academic stage of training - perhaps a more modest approach than that originally envisaged by Economides and Rogers, but a bold step nonetheless against the backdrop of intense regulatory change as regards the legal professions in England and Wales as well as the major changes facing higher education institutions over the next few years