In order to achieve quality in the services of legal professionals, it is fundamental to have mechanisms that guarantee a free, independent and ethical exercise of the profession. The mechanisms should encourage a social commitment and quality professional training.
Regarding the professional training of lawyers, much has been said about the need to improve the quality of law degree programs and to tighten the authorizations and controls for the educational institutions that offer these programs. Definitely, this is an indispensable step aimed at producing better prepared lawyers. It is very costly for society not to have mechanisms that allow the ethical, free and quality practice of lawyers
However, a transformation of legal education will not achieve its objective if it does not visualize the process of professional training of a lawyer as an educational continuum, which does not start or end with a law degree.
The continuous training of attorneys is made up of different educational processes depending on the degree of progress in training and professional practice, which includes: pre-baccalaureate training in Law; the degree in Law. The start of supervised professional practice; the graduate; continuing education; advanced or specialized professional practice; and self-learning. For each stage, it is necessary to define what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes should be acquired by future attorneys as well as the processes to evaluate it.
For several years, there has been a discussion on whether compulsory licensing and certification are the appropriate means to strengthen the training continuum of lawyers. In general, this is aimed at guaranteeing the quality of the services of legal professionals, such as Weston Law Firms. Although there are serious studies on its positive impact and concrete proposals for its implementation, critical voices persist that question its viability in our context and hinder such implementation.
It is necessary to implement the best possible model in the short term at the moment. This is due to the growing number of professionals entering the labor market without a requirement for training or constant updating. From 2010 to the date, more professional certificates have been issued to graduates in Law than during the entire 20th Century. These new lawyers are trained in educational programs that are diverse in structure and quality. The programs do not have any additional requirement to practice the profession in any part of the country.
The second reason is the importance of moving to a next level of discussion that provides tools to face the challenges that the legal profession is facing. It is necessary to analyze how the new forms of organization of the offices, the new models of payment to the clients, the globalization, the technology, the opening of markets in goods and services, among others. These factors will impact on the exercise of Law.
It is more costly for society not to have mechanisms that allow quality, free, independent and ethical professional practice of lawyers to continue looking for the ideal mechanism, to adopt compulsory licensing and certification, closely monitoring its implementation to propose adjustments when required.
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