Professional Competence Peer Review and Quality Assurance in England and Wales and in Scotland

Authors

  • Avrom Sherr Woolf Professor of Legal Education, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, United Kingdom
  • Alan Paterson Director of the Centre for Professional Legal Studies, Strathclyde University Law School, Scotland; Chair of the International Legal Aid Group; Chair of the Legal Aid and Legal Services Group of the International Working Group on Comparative Legal Professions; Chair of the Legal Services Group of Citizens Advice Scotland; Research Adviser to the Scottish Legal Aid Board

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/alr341

Abstract

Peer review has emerged as a method of assessing the work of legal aid lawyers in the United Kingdom. The authors show how testing different methods led to review of files emerging as the most effective means of peer review. A number of approaches, including double marking of files, are used to ensure accuracy and consistency among the reviewers. Peer review in Scotland may be more relevant than England and Wales to the Canadian context as the legal professions are of similar size. The authors discuss both criminal and civil work and the application of peer review as well as the outcomes of the pilot projects in the U.K.

Downloads

Published

2008-06-01

Issue

Vol 45, No 5: Proceedings of the Law Society of Alberta's 100th Anniversary Conference

Section

Articles

License

For Editions following and including Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

For Editions prior to Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

Author(s) retain original copyright in the substantive content of the titled work, subject to the following rights that are granted indefinitely:

  1. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to produce, publish, disseminate, and distribute the titled work in electronic format to online database services, including, but not limited to: LexisNexis, QuickLaw, HeinOnline, and EBSCO;
  2. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to post the titled work on the Alberta Law Review website and/or related websites.
  3. Author(s) agree that the titled work may be used for educational or instructional purposes and/or in educational or instructional materials. The author(s) acknowledge that the titled work is subject to other such "fair dealing" provisions and applicable legislation.
  4. Author(s) grant a limited license to those accessing the titled work from an electronic database or an Alberta Law Review website to download the titled work onto their computer and to print a copy for their own personal, non-commercial use, subject to proper attribution.

To use the journal's content elsewhere, permission must be obtained from the author(s) and the Alberta Law Review.