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13 J. Prof. Legal Educ. 227 (1995)
Competence Revisited: A Summary of Research on Lawyer Competence

handle is hein.journals/proleged13 and id is 237 raw text is: Journal of Professional Legal Education VoL 13 No. 2 COMMENTARY COMPETENCE REVISITED: A SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ON LAWYER COMPETENCE Maureen F. Fitzgerald INTRODUCTION Over the last few years the focus on legal competence has increased exponentially. Increasing public criticism of the legal profession and corresponding government pressure on self-regulatory bodies has led many law societies and law faculties to seriously question lawyers' competence.1 Those who regulate the profession have begun to question whether lawyers are voluntarily maintaining their own competence and are looking at ways to measure and ensure competence and reduce incompetence.2 Those who educate the legal profession are beginning to review their curricula in an attempt to ensure that what is taught is appropriate3 while lawyers are increasingly concerned about quality of service for their clients. Although a few studies were conducted on legal competence prior to 19804 most of the research into lawyers' competence was conducted in the 1980s. This research began to uncover exactly what lawyers did and confirmed that many law school graduates did not have the skills necessary for practising law. A number of valuable studies on the competence of lawyers have been conducted in the United States, England, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong. The most recent of which was conducted by the American Bar Association in 1989-1992 resulting in the MacCrate Report. This paper summarises the main research on competence from each of these countries, focusing on their different methodologies5 and the resulting descriptions. A summary of this information can be found in Appendix A. UNITED STATES Several American studies have attempted to comprehensively define legal competence. The early research into competence was initiated by academics such as Baird (1978) and Zemans and Rosenblum (1981). Later the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association became involved in the search for competence. Because most of the original research was for purposes of curriculum development the original descriptions tend to consist of lengthy lists of skills and knowledge. The more recent descriptions were intended for use by practitioners and regulatory bodies and therefore describe what lawyers do in a more functional manner - focussing on the tasks of lawyers. Baird - 1978 A survey was conducted by Baird in 1978 of sixteen hundred graduates from six different law schools. Baird (1978) set out to determine whether particular aspects

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