Everywhere around the world academics and professionals are embracing the concept of web and computer based training (W/CBT), but for some reason within the UK legal profession there has always been stiff resistance to the idea, and even now some City based training partners despair of ever convincing their lawyers of the benefits of this type of training. However, Semple Piggot Rochez Legal Education Ltd (SPR), the Chiswick based multimedia legal training specialists have long believed that W/CBT can deliver exactly the knowledge needed, wherever and whenever required and that W/CBT methods are fast emeging as some of the most useful and important tools available to today’s legal training professionals.
Founded by a group of lawyers and with a largely legally qualifed management team, SPR began developing internet based training resouces in 1997, and in 1998 acquired the law division of Wolsey Hall, Oxford, "the university in the home", which over the course of its 100 year history, was responsible for educating and training many thousands of lawyers including, for example, Nelson Mandela. SPR has since continued to build upon this tradition of excellence whilst adding advanced electronic support mechanisms and sophisticated website technology in order to provide the world’s first online law degree programmes for students reading for the University of London’s LLB and LLM (External) degrees.
SPR takes a multi-media approach to legal education and their academic programmes offer both extensive resources and interaction. For example, all SPR students are provided with online text-based course and revision materials, audio and video files of lectures and interviews with leading members of the judiciary and practitioners, virtual tutorials and discussion forums, interactive testing and personal assessment, and last but by no means least, access to an online Law Library which rivals in its quality and extent the libraries of most leading law firms. As is the case with all distance learning, the level of commitment required for successful completion of SPR courses is high, but the support and resources provided enable students not just to pass the University’s examinations but to excel in them.
Encouraged by the success of the law school, in 2000 SPR took the decision to expand their operations into the field of continuing professional development and, as part of a joint venture with leading legal publishers Butterworths Tolley, launched CPD Direct, a professional training service utilising existing materials from both companies and newly commissioned material from leading academics and practitioners to offer a wide range of online multi-media courses and other related materials. This time, however, the path did not prove to be as smooth as SPR would have hoped.
For over two years CPD Direct remained one of the best kept secrets in the legal training world as SPR and Butterworths struggled to find the right formula for success in what they discovered to be an extremely cautious and conservative target market. Throughout this difficult time and largely thanks to the determination and dedication of CEO Mike Semple Piggot, SPR remained convinced that the convergence of traditional distance education, computer conveyed education and the latest internet technologies was resulting in a wealth of rich media and interaction becoming available to supplement law firm training programmes and in February 2003 CPD Direct was re-launched by SPR as part of The Legal Practitioner suite of multimedia legal training products.
After taking account of customer feedback, SPR have redesigned CPD Direct to provide a much more streamlined service offering a new range of online multi-media courses at considerably lower prices, something that has been particularly welcomed by the Law Society’s Young Solicitors Group who have since adopted CPD Direct as their official online training service. In the words of YSG honorary secretary Adrian Barham, "the YSG has long been calling for course providers to make their pricing more affordable to young practitioners". YSG CPD Direct can be accessed on www.ysg.biz and a proportion of the revenue from all courses purchased will go to the YSG to support its pastoral and other activities.
In addition, The Legal Practitioner umbrella service now offers a complete portfolio of innovative products utilising a mixture of CD ROM and internet delivery and enabling training partners to offer learner-content interaction in the form of written documents and HTML pages, audio and video presentations, and simple drill and practice exercises; asynchronous learner-learner or learner-instructor interaction via e-mail and online forums; and even synchronous interaction through real time virtual classrooms and videoconferencing.
Obviously the use of such technologies can, quite literally, free a firm’s training programme from the boundaries of the terrestrial lecture room and from the restrictions of scheduling and timetables. Learners train at a location to suit themselves, no-one need spend time out of the office, learners can control the pace and direction of their own learning, and they can do so at times convenient to them. In addition, the effectiveness of this type of training in skills transfer and retention is well documented. For example, the use of video is particularly beneficial in that it involves more of the senses. Video imparts a message using sight, sound, and emotion with the result that the audience becomes more engaged, and is thus more likely to take notice. The increased rate of retention afforded by video over print is considerable, and indeed a study by the Wharton School of Business has shown that video boosts comprehension and retention by 50% over even a live presentation. Other studies have shown that six times as many people prefer watching a video to reading printed information. If the message is also reinforced through the use of event streamed Powerpoint slides and self assessment testing and is backed up by an electronic performance support (EPS) system offering access to additional materials and expert opinion then the overall learning experience becomes even more powerful.
Based on this thinking SPR have embarked on the production of an ambitious programme of video based CD ROM courses backed up on the web. The Legal Practitioner portfolio currently includes: The Legal Practitioner Updater service, a CD ROM/online hybrid service aimed at smaller law firms; Advocacy in Modern Legal Practice, a double CD in which Jonathan Goldberg QC (Consulting Editor to The Legal Practitioner) deals in detail with the principles of good advocacy; The Effective Practice Management Series, three new CD ROMs focusing on law practice management produced in association with Best Practice Online Limited and featuring such well known names in the law management world as Peter Scott, (ex Eversheds and now Horwath Clark Whitehill), Nick Jarrett-Kerr (ex Bevan Ashford and the Chairman of the Law Management Section), and Simon Young (Ex Veitch Penney and now a Law Society Council member); and a series of specialist CDs covering a number of practice areas and including sessions on family law presented by Jacqui Gilliatt and the family law Team at 4 Brick Court, a commercial law CD presented by solicitor Susan Singleton, and a detailed analysis of the insolvency aspects of the Enterprise Act 2002 by Richard de Lacy QC. In addition, The Legal Practitioner website has been developed into a valuable legal resource in its own right offering a mix of legal news and current awareness information to supplement and enhance the training programmes offered
SPR have also become aware that many firms prefer to develop their own training programmes that are highly specialised and geared to the exact needs of the organisation. To this end not only are the SPR team in a position to utilise their multi-media production capability in the provision of cost effective bespoke electronic training services to firms on a consultancy basis (both online and on CD-ROM), but are also able, through sister company Perscitus LMS Ltd, to offer a powerful out-of-the-box learning management system at an exceptionally low price.
The Perscitus distance learning management system is a scaleable and robust high level programmed LMS designed to handle e-sales, administration, accounting and delivery of online courses over the internet or through a training intranet. The backbone of the SPR online law school, Perscitus is capable of supporting many thousands of simultaneous users and seamlessly integrating video, sound, interactive text, online TV and radio broadcasting, bulletin boards, e-books, examination and testing systems and online tracking. It provides an extensive range of tools for the user, including a personal calendar, word processor, email client, messaging system, personal web page and an email address directory. Users can be provided with their own private online chatrooms and may even incorporate Microsoft Net Meeting for use with a web cam for online video conferencing.
It is true to say that W/CBT may not always be the best solution to a training problem. Traditional delivery and face-to-face learning have their advantages too, but deploying W/CBT as part of a wider programme of education and training can be both highly effective and inexpensive. But even so, as we have seen, there still remains some resistance to the idea within the legal profession. Undoubtedly, lawyers are a cautious breed and although at the moment, W/CBT is high on the agenda for larger firms there are relatively few who have so far taken the plunge. All seem to agree that the pure economics of W/CBT are not on their own a compelling enough proposition to encourage takeup. To training partners, W/CBT courses must offer high quality content coupled with enhanced learning methods and to learners they must represent an attractive alternative to instructor-led courses. Unfortunately, many early attempts at providing W/CBT to the legal profession failed to live up to their potential and it is possible that these early failures have caused training partners to view this type of product with some degree of scepticism. However, SPR are confident that their latest offerings may well go a long way towards convincing the sceptics of the true value of this medium and are looking forward to the future as their dream of accessible and cost effective multimedia legal education becomes reality.
Contributed by John Pitman, Publishing Director at Semple Piggot Rochez, developers of the world’s first internet law school (www.spr-law.com) and publishers of The Legal Practitioner suite of multimedia legal training products, (www.legalpractitioner.co.uk). John was formerly an online publisher at Butterworths Tolley, where, among other things, he was responsible for the creation of the Law Direct service.
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