From Hafiz Hassan

Despite Free Malaysia Today not reporting on the Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) examination results for 2021, unlike for 2020, your columnist, K Parkaran, was able to write: “As expected, less than 20% (or 219) of the estimated 1,400 law graduates who sat for the exam obtained full passes.”

The writer must have visited the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB)’s official website where the names of candidates who obtained full passes (219 of them) and those who received conditional passes (227 of them) were published.

If he were to read further up, above the list of candidates with full passes, he would have found “Comments and Observations Made by Certificate In Legal Practice Examiners – 2017”.

This gives a summary of the comments and observations by the CLP examiners in 2017. The LPQB wanted to share this with candidates to help them better understand where they had gone wrong in the CLP examination.

The summary sets out clearly that the CLP test, being a professional examination and the entry point into the legal profession, requires the candidates to be stringently tested.

This is to ensure that the successful candidates are of a high calibre and worthy of the profession.

The common comments shared by the examiners highlight the weaknesses of candidates.

These are:

• candidates have not attained the knowledge level required;
• “clueless” answers are given;
• answers follow a pattern which leads to the conclusion that the person is merely regurgitating or parroting what has been taught by lecturers; and,
• total reliance on model answers of past-year questions.

The private educators for the CLP course were also not spared criticism. The examiners commented that these educators might not be doing it right when imparting their knowledge on the subject content to candidates.

While one may agree with Parkaran that “there is a serious need to revamp the CLP syllabus and content, similar to the Singapore or English models which are diverse, dynamic and involve many practical elements”, the passing rate of only about 20% every year cannot be because the CLP exam “appears to be an exam aimed at failing the students”.

According to the examiners’ comments and observations, candidates and private educators of the CLP course are equally to be blamed.

The examiners observed that they did not see “any semblance of independent learning”. The thought process of the candidates was not apparent when answering questions, they added.

Candidates tended to regurgitate their knowledge in a particular area of law rather than apply that knowledge to the particular facts of the case provided in the question.

It appears that the candidates seemed to have memorised a standard set of answers for a particular area of law.

The way many candidates answered their questions was also seen to be “uniform”, indicating the particular way they were taught and instructed.

It is therefore important that the private educators of the CLP course “impart the subject matter expected by the LPQB, which is to lead and guide the students on the practical aspects of the subject matter”.

I have written elsewhere that perhaps amendments to the Legal Profession Act 1976 (Act 166) are timely for the establishment of, among others, an Institute of Legal Education (ILE) — similar to Singapore. This is to provide courses of instruction and set their examinations.

With a board of directors comprising representatives from various stakeholders in the legal community, the ILE could be empowered to appoint a dean for the institute, and employ such other officers as might be necessary for the effective performance of the institute’s statutory functions.

Such appointees should be in a better position to conduct academic and vocational courses and their examinations.

There is a need to ensure that training of lawyers in the country is of a high standard.

An institute of legal education could take on the role of overseeing and ensuring that such high standards are maintained.

Hafiz Hassan is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.