E.—7 a,

47

stated, " Victoria has pointedly indicated that, in its opinion, our New Zealand requirements are inadequate. It will admit practitioners from England, Ireland, Scotland, or the other States of the Commonwealth of Australia without examination and without practical work. It will not admit a New Zealand practitioner unless he serves for five years as a clerk and is re-examined in law." New Zealand graduates suffer no such disability in respect of medical or engineering qualification, and the disability under which lawyers rest should be removed by the institution of a more satisfactory course. As regards barristers and solicitors who have not graduated LL.B., the Victorian practice is to require (1) matriculation (including Latin) ; (2) a pass in nine law professional subjects ; (3) four years' service as a pupil under articles to a person practising as a barrister or solicitor, or as a barrister and solicitor. In support of the claim that in order to promote solidarity in the profession and the maintenance of ethical standards, both barristers and solicitors should have a training embracing the three elements, general culture, professional study, and practical experience, we again quote from the Carnegie Foundation Bulletin 15 — Training for the Public Profession of the Law : " Between the product of a strong University Law School resting upon a certain amount of liberal education and a young man who has secured just enough training to be admitted to the Bar there is a gulf which their subsequent experience in practice is more likely to widen than to bridge. To expect individuals so different from one another to co-operate on an equal footing in a professional way is to expect what, except in the rarest instances, never can be and never ought to be, so long as we look to education to mould character. The comparatively untrained man may be equally worthy and in his own line of work equally competent. But if the one who has enjoyed the greater opportunities has not in many ways grown apart from the other, and if, in particular, he is not the better qualified to discharge professional responsibilities in a spirit of noblesse oblige, then American higher education lias failed." Another great handicap under which legal education suffers in New Zealand is the almost invariable practice of taking legal studies as evening courses after office work either in a law office or an office engaged in some other business. Over 90 per cent, of New Zealand law students are evening students only. Of the 190 evening law students who constitute the largest single group of students at Victoria College, Wellington, 52 per cent, only are employed fully or for part-time in law offices. The remainder are mostly public servants studying law subjects either to gain advancement in the service or to enable them later to start in legal practice. The amount of legal practice such students can obtain is probably very little indeed. We are of opinion that part-time education properly conditioned is in no way undesirable. But while it is certain that earnest students engaged in law offices during the day can do excellent work at an evening school, it surely cannot be argued that the result is so good as can be secured by the same students attending fulltime courses or that the pace of the class should be that of the class for full-time students. The difficulty should be met by insisting on such a limitation of the number of subjects taken as will allow sufficient time for both teacher and student to do justice to the work. Further, it must be remembered that in most countries where law students attend late afternoon and evening courses they are in a genuine law office under strict articles of clerkship. This cannot be said of New Zealand, where the only legal education which is under control is the work of the class-room. Some students may be receiving an excellent practical training, but of this there is no guarantee. It is well to point out that there is also a fairly large section of candidates for law examinations who do not attend University classes at all. One of the examiners, Mr. H. F. von Haast, stated : The evils in the case of non-University students are—(l) No practical training and no practical knowledge of the law, of the traditions or ethics of the profession; (2) often a lack of general education; (3) failure to grasp the meaning of what they are studying, and mere parrot repetition of stock answers with which, they have been crammed." All the professional schools should require definite and approved practical courses. These are provided for medical students in the hospitals associated with

Interests of legal profession demand higher standards.

Law students in New Zealand are .part-time students,

Part-time work should be strictly conditioned.

External students taking law.

Practical training an essential.