Raft of senior figures assembled to push forward with wholesale review of legal education and training

Former Simmons & Simmons senior partner Dame Janet Gaymer (pictured) has been handed a mandate to play a key role in the most fundamental review of legal education and training in England and Wales to take place in decades.

Gaymer has been appointed alongside former Court of Appeal judge Sir Mark Potter to chair a consultation panel for the wholesale review, dubbed Review 2020. It is a joint project between the three largest legal regulators in England and Wales: the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the Bar Standards Board and the Institute of Legal Executives Professional Standards.

The review, announced last autumn, is intended to take into account future demands on legal services and the changes that will shape the market, while ensuring ethical and competence standards in the profession are maintained.

Gaymer and Potter, now an arbitrator with Fountain Court, will be joined on the consultation panel by representatives from around 30 key stakeholder groups such as law firms and universities, with the line-up due to be finalised in the next few weeks. The panel will hold up to four formal meetings each year throughout the review period.

In addition to appointing Gaymer and Potter, the regulators have also selected the UK Centre of Legal Education and a research team of academics and consultants, including legal technology strategy Richard Susskind, to conduct independent research.

The team will look at the educational requirements for entering the profession and the requirements for continuing education for practitioners as well as the requirements placed on law schools and those delivering the education.

There is currently no fixed timetable for the research team and consultation panel to report back or for when any changes are likely to take place, with the '2020' name simply intended to illustrate the review's aim of examining the legal services market of the future. As part of the mandate to look at training and education needs in the wake of the Legal Services Act, the review will also look at other geographies and professions, as well as looking at diversity, through a full equality impact assessment.

SRA chairman Charles Plant said: "It was most important that we attracted the right people to lead the consultation with stakeholders. Dame Janet and Sir Mark have a vast experience both through the practice of law and in issues related to legal education and training."

The Legal Services Board has welcomed the new appointments, with chairman David Edmonds saying: "The review must deliver education and training requirements that are fit for the legal sector of the future and that look beyond initial qualification routes for lawyers (important though those are).

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Industry reaction to the appointments

"Sir Mark Potter is very well known in the profession; he is very experienced, both in the commercial and the family courts. If there is anyone who can navigate the education review efficiently, it is him." – Nicholas Green QC, former Bar Council chair and new joint head of Brick Court Chambers

"They are an excellent team with a good grasp of the issues facing educators and the profession. Janet Gaymer and Sir Mark Potter are both weighty appointments. Gaymer brings considerable experience of the City firms and Sir Mark Potter the Bar and the judiciary. Sir Mark also has good experience of legal education issues through his chairmanship of the Legal Services Consultative Panel." – Professor Richard Moorhead, Cardiff University

"The regulators have taken six months to decide on a chairman, and even now they were unable to pick one and had to agree on two. I am sceptical about how efficient this review will be going forward. The regulators will now need to appoint people who are in touch with law graduates and have experienced the actual output of law schools in recent years." – Anonymous partner

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Review 2020 research team members

  • Julian Webb is a professor of legal education at the University of Warwick and director of the UK Centre for Legal Education. He is also a senior associate research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
  • Avrom Sherr is a professor of legal education and the director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at University College London.
  • Paul Maharg is a law professor at Northumbria Law School.
  • Dr Jane Ching has been in postgraduate legal education since 1993 and is a reader at Nottingham Law School.

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richard-susskindLegal consultants

  • Richard Susskind (pictured) is a legal consultant and professor, specialising in the use of IT by lawyers.
  • Dr Chris Decker is an economist and member of the Regulatory Policy Institute whose research is focused on
  • the application of economics in public policy, legal and regulatory processes.
  • Rob Wilson is a professor and a faculty member of the Warwick Institute for Employment Research.