Former Taylor Wessing trainee Natalie Salunke questions the recent proposals to do away with training contracts

Under the College of Law's proposal to scrap training contracts, law students would be able to call themselves 'solicitors' directly after completion of the Legal Practice Course (LPC) – something which I can see appealing to plenty of people. What is worrying, though, is where this would leave LPC finishers in terms of their development and the quality of service they would be able to provide to clients.

The concept would see LPC graduates able to do certain types of work, including many tasks carried out on transactions, without any additional training. My concern is how such work would be supervised, if at all. Would it mean, in effect, that a post-graduate with no practical experience of the law (apart from the classroom) would be made to account personally for any slip-ups they might encounter when they are just starting out? At the moment trainees have training principals to supervise their work and professional courses to attend throughout the two year contract. What would happen to these services and obligations if TCs were scrapped? Would the solicitor retain ultimate responsibility for their training? Would obtaining additional training be incurred at a cost to that solicitor?

It should be noted that most professions have training years – whether it be dentistry, accountancy or medicine. The reason training programmes are in place is to safeguard both the individuals and their clients. People know what they are getting when someone is a doctor rather than a junior doctor; a solicitor as opposed to a trainee. Would it be appropriate for an LPC graduate who is working on a corporate deal, together with the usual associate solicitor and partner, to correspond directly with the client using the title 'solicitor' on their email signature? How would the client know that this person is any less qualified than the other solicitor working on the deal?

But it's about more than just semantics and supervision. TCs are geared around presenting individuals with opportunities to gain experience in a good range of quality work. Without them, those starting out in law could find themselves doing commoditised tasks with little or no training benefit.

The College of Law claims scrapping the training contract would raise competency levels and enhance service levels to clients. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can only see it doing the opposite.

Natalie Salunke trained at Taylor Wessing and is currently working in-house.