Douglas Mill: Who’s next?

A fairly profound development crept under the radar screens of the profession recently.

CMS Cameron Mckenna signed a deal with Edinburgh University Law School appointing them as the sole provider of the Diploma for their trainees. Neither has given it much publicity.

So what is all this about and why worry?

Well, granted it simply follows what big firms in England have been doing for years-influencing and directing the Legal Practice Course, so it was to be expected that these English firms would seek to do the same after a couple of years for their Scottish branches.

Expressions involving paying pipers and calling tunes does come to mind. And these firms are used to flexing their muscles. And universities are all about money these days, so in the short term Edinburgh has won a watch. I would guess 30 students at £8k, so that’s a guaranteed quarter of a million for starters. Plus the implication that they must be the best as CMS have anointed them, so that may attract others.

Set against that is the fact that they must have been getting a good few of them anyway, and CMS will undoubtedly have negotiated a significant bulk discount.

So who gains and who loses?

In the short term Edinburgh. But they will have a tiger by the tail because, if the English experience is anything to go by, the curriculum will start to skew away from the general and towards the big firm subjects.

So, the Law Society of Scotland will have to keep an eye on their general and core skills being covered. It’s a difficult one for them. And how does it sit with their concerns for access to the profession?

And it may benefit the CMS trainees in the short term, but I understand about 30 per cent of them are not kept on, so this narrower educational furrow may not equip them for more general and smaller scale practice - or even for other big firms - when they’ve only ever known one way of working.

And where does geography come in? One advantage of our present system is local availability. Will CMS paradoxically lose out on bright youngsters in Aberdeen, the west and elsewhere who need to stay at home? Edinburgh is the most expensive place to live in Scotland and this move plays to Edinburgh students, which does not sit comfortably with a policy of making the profession open to all with the ability and determination to get through what is now a frankly unjustifiable seven years.

And what about the other law schools?

I can’t imagine they are happy about it. Well, are they now seen as not good enough for big firm trainees? What does it mean to them financially? I know Glasgow upped their numbers last year to 250 and were charging about £8k, so that’s a £2 million a year business under threat. And I cannot help but wonder if CMS are still GU’s solicitors, as D+W were. Not great politics to destabilise a nice wee income stream for one of your clients and kind of imply they are not quite good enough.

And will other big firms sit back or do their own deals? Some may look for another best pal. Or perhaps they are all going to use Edinburgh and put real pressure on for a bespoke Diploma/LPC.

Is this an indicator that these big English firms will eventually bypass the Scottish system? Is it a slippery slope, as some suspect, to avoiding Scottish Practising Certificates?

Another nail in the coffin of the collegiate profession we used to hold dear.

Another indicator of our badly bifurcated profession.

Are the other law schools joining high street legal firms well below the salt?

So, Who’s Next. Or maybe we Won’t Get Fooled Again.

And the usual Chateau Thames Embankment to the first reader to e-mail me how old that album is.