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The poor quality of LLB Graduates

A topic that is often talked about in legal circles is the poor quality of South Africa’s future lawyers. LLB Graduates finish university without being able to draw affidavits and pleadings and many law firms conclude that two areas where their young clerks are lacking are numeracy and literacy.

“LLB must be upgraded”

The topic of LLB Graduates that are having trouble with numeracy and literacy featured at the ninth provincial consultative workshop on the Legal Services Charter in July 2007 and this part of the meeting decided that “LLB must be upgraded”.

The need for Law firms to start funding their own training programmes has been a matter of debate for the past two years – but what is being done? The Attorneys Fidelity Fund advertised in their journal that they would like a researcher to conduct a study of all the literacy and numeracy programmes that are taught at the Law faculties of South African universities. This study will be used to recommend standards for numeracy training throughout the course.

The LSSA’s department of Legal Education and Development (LEAD) has expressed concern. They are looking for ways to bridge this gap by creating courses for young lawyers at a postgraduate level.

Can’t Count, Can’t Write

The LSSA’s School for Legal Practice, is involved in an ongoing review of South Africa’s LLB curriculum (together with the deans of law from university faculties) to assist with recommendations about upgrading the course. Not only is numeracy a big problem, but the apparent general lack of functional literacy has to be improved. Many law students that achieved great results during their course can’t even write an essay, yet writing is an essential part of the job. 
 

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