A report on the performance of lawyers sitting for the Certificate in Legal Practice last year was damning, with examiners recommending that candidates do a six-month internship before being allowed to sit for the papers.
The report released recently by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board spoke of poor to average command of English, inadequate preparation, failing to understand questions, regurgitating model answers and not taking the examination seriously.
Their analyses were on each of the five subjects that the 1,174 candidates sat for in August last year. The subjects were general paper, civil procedure, criminal procedure, evidence and professional practice. The passing mark is 40% for each of the papers.
Only 20% – 25% full passes
The report did not say how many of them obtained full passes but it’s understood to be about 20% to 25%.
All candidates must pass all five subjects at one go before they are allowed to do their nine-month period as pupils in chambers before they can obtain their practising certificates.
They are allowed to sit for the examination a maximum of four times in five years. Those who fail only one paper are allowed to repeat it twice.
Poor command of English
Commenting on the general paper, the report said candidates generally lacked drafting skills and had poor command of English.
More than 45% failed the general paper while more than 58% failed the civil procedure paper.
The consensus among the examiners was that candidates had a poor understanding of the issues involved in the questions; even if they did identify the issues, there was a poor application of the law to the facts and in some cases, the wrong principles of law were applied.
“The language skills of the candidates averaged from poor to average. Very few candidates possessed a good command of the language.
Distorted answers
“Candidates had difficulty expressing themselves and as a result, their answers were distorted.
“They performed poorly as they did not appear to be well-versed in civil procedure, lacked comprehension of the topics and did not construct their answers properly,” the report said.
The report recommended that candidates should observe six months’ internship in legal firms before being allowed to sit for the examination.
Poor understanding
As for the criminal procedure examination, the report attributed the 57% failure rate to the poor understanding of the questions, with some left partially answered.
“Generally, candidates were able to identify the legal issues involved but were poor at applying the relevant law to the facts even if the legal issues were identified, the authorities were not sufficiently cited,” it said.
About 54% of candidates failed the evidence paper, with the report saying most candidates were able to identify the issues but did not provide answers that reflected the issues at hand.
Using model answers
In some cases, candidates struggled with even straightforward questions with many of them focused on peculiar words in the question and were led astray with their answers.
“It was apparent that many candidates relied on model answers, using them as templates to answer questions, despite the diverse issues raised in the questions,” it said.
In short, added the report, the failures and bare minimum passes were due to incomplete and inaccurate understanding of the law; failure to keep up with recent developments in case laws; incomplete answers and wasting time in regurgitating sections among others.
Worst performance
The performance in the professional paper was the worst with more than 65% of the candidates failing.
Generally, the report said performance was very poor as many candidates were not well prepared for the examination. A significant number of candidates did not prepare at all as reflected by marks scored below 20.
“There were a handful of answer scripts that scored zero marks and this was highly disconcerting to note. This also calls into question the actual readiness of the candidates in the first place.
“It can safely be concluded that the candidates are not taking the examination seriously,” it said.
