What knowledge-building is required by the admission exmas for attorneys? an analysis with legitimation code theory

Abstract

The legal professional council is require to testify itself that every candidate legal practitioner seeking admission into the legal profession is duly qualified to be admitted. Candidates with an LLB degree can be admitted into the legal profession if they pass an admission exam. the admission exam consist of four papers that aim to test the core skills, competencies and abilities that every legal practitioner should demonstrate before they are permitted to practice law. however, concerns have been expressed about the competence recently of newly admitted attorneys. While much blame have been put at the door of university preparation programmes, not much focus has been on the demands and requirements of the admissions examination. This is the gap that this study seeks to address. the main aim of this study is to analyses the knowledge-building expectations of the 2020 attorney`s admission exam. the study employs a document analysis approaching and investigate how the knowledge-building required by an admission examination correlates to the experiences and perceptions of five legal candidates completing their internship at a law firm in South Africa. Tools from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) are used as an analytic framework. I consider how question require students to shift between different strength of semantic gravity (SG). I also analyses how candidates must shift between everyday and, legal, structural forms and discourses. The study findings revealed that candidates were examined on Three main areas of law: their understanding and explanation of legal knowledge, their application of legal knowledge, and, to a minimal extent, their grasp of legal ethics. the questions required them to work with knowledge in various ways, such as shifting context dependence between the specific facts of a case and relevant statutes and case precedents. the study also find that legal candidates were required to draw academic, legal and everyday discourses and shift between them. the analysis reveals specific gaps in the admission exam. These pertain to inadequate testing of ethics and legal research and insufficient opportunities for candidates to justify or motivate their legal advice or legal opinions. given previous outcries about the quality and competencies of legal practitioners, it is crucial for the legal practice council to attend to the gaps identified and for those who mentor and train candidate legal practitioners to ensure they gain experience in these knowledge-building activities.