You are here: Home News Workshop-training with a professor from the UK took place in the Law Institute of the SFU


Workshop-training with a professor from the UK took place in the Law Institute of the SFU

Details
Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 April 2016 12:03

On the 15-16 of February 2016 in the Law Institute of the SFU the methodical seminar ‘Education of Lawyers in the UK. The case method in teaching lawyers’ took place. It was aimed on professional development of professors.

The main speaker Stuart Weinstein, professor of the Coventry University. He is well-known expert in the field of legal risks, operations with securities and derivatives, and he is a brilliant lecturer with a good sense of humour. He has a high awareness of the USA and the UK legal systems. Professor consistently held the audience’s attention for two days and answered many questions. At one of the seminars Stuart Weinstein demonstrated a simulation game for the case study with students of the Comparative Law Department. Daria Ushakova, Alyona Kapelina, Daria Kazachkova, Maxim Grebnev and Irina Rykovanova showed the ability not only to analyze the text of the court’s decisions, but also demonstrated skills of public speaking in English. The participants of the course appreciated this part of the methodological workshop. Special attention should be given to a high-quality translation from English to Russian, which was carried out by Marina V. Lomaeva, an assistant of Labour and Environmental Law Department.

12 main facts about legal profession and education in the UK by Stuart Weinstein, the professor of the Coventry University:

  1. Only solicitors-members of the self-regulatory organization of solicitors and barristers accord legal services in the UK. Advising without having a solicitor status is a crime.
  2. Legal profession consists of:
    Paralegals, who carry out preparatory and research work to solicitors.
    Solicitors - lawyers who perform everyday legal work from preparation of documentation and provision of advice to the judicial work in the low level courts.
    Barristers are trial lawyers, who are engaged exclusively in the representation of their clients in the courts of any level.
  3. Barrister does not work directly with the client. Solicitors always need to be present. Solicitors are present even on meetings. Usually those solicitors found or helped to find a client. Thus, clients are usually have to pay at least for two lawyers.
  4. Primarily Britain judiciary is composed of former barristers. Meanwhile, Lord Johnathan Sampson, having no previous experience, but outstanding search and practical skills, was appointed on the judge`s position. The last case he dealt with as a barrister was Berezovsky v Abramovich, where he acted on behalf of the latter.
  5. To become a lawyer, allowed to provide legal services in the UK, a person could choose any strategy: graduation from the university + fulfillment of practically oriented courses (for barristers or for solicitors); paralegal courses + legal practice + additional courses + examination; professional retraining (for non-lawyers) + practically oriented courses; tests for lawyers from the EU and the USA (enabling non-citizens to provide legal services in the Great Britain).
  6. Barristers` Inns of Court have already been functioning for several hundreds of consecutive years since they were established on the turn of 14th and 15th centuries.
  7. The length of legal education depends on the university in question and student`s personal engagement. Standard lawyers` professional way includes the following steps: 3 years of legal education, 1 year of practical courses for solicitors and for barristers (conducted separately), 2 years of work as paralegal for solicitors / 1 year of work as paralegal for barristers.
  8. The legal community in the face of the Joint Academic supervision (Joint Academic Stage oversight) which includes representatives among solicitors and barristers mainly controls legal education in the UK.
  9. Legal education in the UK is essentially dependent on the inflow of foreign students and their academic achievements. Universities can significantly change and adjust their programs to fit the interests of representatives from different countries.
  10. Currently the final graduation score is estimated based only on courses, which students take on 3rd year of studies. This is the main reason why students tend to goofing off and wake up only on their 3rd year of study.
  11. In the UK people are very sensitive to the manifestation of class inequality, therefore, formal greetings and appeals to the teacher are absent. The professors are addressed by name.
  12. Professors in the UK believes that education is in crisis. Low wages, a huge amount of paperwork and reports to make, students who do not want to study and constantly complain about unfair evaluation.

Translated by Anastasia Yevtugina, Anastasia Mikhaleva, Daria Kasachkova