Young litigation solicitors and their perceptions of movement from qualification to the 3 year watershed

The study first discusses solicitors’ training, in its political context, providing an outline of litigation practice measured against relevant competence frameworks, including those intended to mark the point of qualification for the future, demonstrating that the point of qualification may be characterised by stress, uncertainty and mixed messages as to the status (if any) now achieved: a period of “professional adolescence”.The currently proposed competence framework for the point of qualification is analysed so as to extract from it an assumed “competence for development”. The literature relating to CPD; adult learning; nature and acquisition of expertise and workplace learning is then analysed in the context of the interview group. The existing CPD scheme is found to permit, rather than to encourage, development including the “aspiration” required to increase the scope of activity (contrasted with enhancement of the quality of performance). The andragogical assumptions, in particular those of selfdirection and autonomy, are compared with the literature on the novice-expert spectrum, reconciled by concluding that the period of professional adolescence may depress developmental autonomy