YOURSAY | Time to revamp the outdated CLP

YOURSAY | ‘CLP is an unnecessary burden to any law student who graduated overseas.’

Law graduate’s burning desire to practice snuffed out at CLP

Law grad's last appeal for CLP retake revives calls for Common Bar

Federal Bakery: There is a serious need to review the certificate of legal practice (CLP). When it was introduced over 40 years ago, it was meant to be a temporary process to meet an exigency of that time.

The Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) owes a duty to intending practitioners to update the existing qualifying procedures that include a chambering period of nine months supervised by a lawyer of standing.

The CLP has gone through many embarrassing controversies. In my opinion, the exams don't serve the purpose that the profession thinks it performs.

It is an outdated method introduced without much thought and continued without review. Professional education is best acquired by professional training, which can be achieved during chambers.

Chambering students currently do excellent for law firms that take their role as masters seriously.

The profession needs an education council to continually monitor legal education and practice.

This has been on the agenda for over 30 years but nothing has happened. More than four attempts have been made but all were failed attempts. Neither the Malaysian Bar nor the LPQB is qualified to decide on how a lawyer is to be trained.

Professional exams do not pass the test of legal fairness as expressed by the many Latin axioms that lawyers so love. Please reform. Your decisions directly affect people over whose lives you must not exercise such control.

Hmmmmmmmm: I didn't know about this before but after reading this piece of news, I am wondering aloud about two things:

1) Why is this CLP only imposed on foreign university graduates? I am very sure most if not all the foreign universities concerned are ranked much higher than any of the local universities or else our government would not recognise them.

I can understand CLP exams for universities not recognised by the government. I don't buy the reason that foreign graduates will not be familiar with Malaysian laws. This can be learnt as one goes along as most of the laws will be common within the Commonwealth.

2) Why is there a limit to the number of attempts that one can make to sit for an exam? If a candidate finally passes the exam when he is 80, so be it.

Fairjustreasonable2022: Whether it is the CLP or Common Bar Course (CBC), all Malaysian overseas law graduates should be allowed to pursue it based solely on their LLB degrees (Bachelor of Laws), and no limitation as to the number of attempts.

Get rid of irrelevant criteria. Revamp the LPQB.

Koel: Many overseas graduates undergo very rigorous exams and training to get their qualifications. In comparison, we have some dodgy locally trained grads from local tertiary institutions.

Some of these private sector institutions appear to prioritise student numbers over standards so where is the rigorous oversight for that?

When exams are watered down and grades are inflated, how are you so sure that standards are maintained?

And then there are stories of law students not passing their law exams in university but miraculously making the cut as lawyers after multiple tries.

Not too long ago, a news portal reported the case of a local law graduate who took exams 18 times to get his degree. Would such a candidate be more acceptable to the LPQB?

The board needs to ensure that they are using the same measures for all candidates, local and overseas trained. If your standards are low for local universities, why get on a high horse about the overseas trained?

IQ900: Indeed, don't tell me a law degree from the University of London is lesser than a law degree from any of the local universities.

CLP is an unnecessary burden to any law student who graduated overseas. CLP should, at the least, be exempted for students of overseas universities recognised in Malaysia.

Vijay47: One possible response would be that if you are unable to pass the CLP within three attempts, you are not good enough to be a lawyer. Maybe. But isn’t life rife with that teaching that if you fail, try and try again, success is just around the next corner?

Where would new heights of achievement be if nobody wanted to raise the bar? If Usain Bolt was satisfied with merely winning the Olympics, what world records would he have set?

Remember that classic case of try and try again. If Thomas Alva Edison had stopped after his 999th attempt, the electric bulb would not have seen the light of day. Or night. We would still be struggling under candlelight.

In life, and in law, let everyone keep trying and trying until the cows come home. Who knows, he might come out with a new milking machine. And I don’t mean the sale of airport land.

Remember, not everyone is lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah

BluePanther4725: Low-quality law graduates like those from Universiti Technology Mara (UiTM) who were given special exemptions despite not meeting the standard have brought down the quality of lawyers in Malaysia and have compromised the standard and image of lawyers in Malaysia.

This happens also in the medical profession. This is the wrong way to exercise the New Economic Policy (NEP) and 'Malay privileges'.

You cannot let low-quality students graduate just to pretend that the education level of a certain group appears high. This is harming the Malays instead of helping them.

Headhunter: The race-based double standard that is practised by many sectors in the country is dragging us down the gutter. How to be respected and taken seriously when you are perceived to be weak and hold a crutch in one hand?

And now we have hundreds of PhD being churned out by public universities yearly like flipping roadside burgers.

GreenImpala2197: Good lawyers will get more clients, bad lawyers will be out of business.

Let economics and the market determine the worth of a lawyer, not exams that are not an accurate gauge of a lawyer. The CLP is dated and no longer fit for purpose.

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