PETALING JAYA: Efforts to replace the long-standing Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) are gaining momentum, with the first phase of a comprehensive review now completed, says Malaysian Bar president Anand Raj.
He said the task force established by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) to review the CLP has submitted its Phase One report to the board.
“The Bar has been briefed on the task force’s progress and supports the direction of the proposed reforms.
“We look forward to continuing to engage constructively with the LPQB on reform in this area,” he told StarEdu.
Anand said one of the most pressing concerns is the mismatch between what the CLP was originally designed to achieve and the skills required by today’s legal profession.
“Introduced in 1984, the CLP was intended to provide Bachelor of Laws (LLB) graduates from the United Kingdom and other foreign universities with knowledge of Malaysian law before commencing pupillage,” he said.
“It was never conceived as a training programme to prepare graduates for legal practice in Malaysia.”
As a result, he said, some law graduates entering pupillage lack key practical competencies, including oral advocacy and professional communication skills, drafting abilities, bilingual proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia and English, a working understanding of law firm operations, and the ability to navigate ethical issues under pressure.
“Reform must close these gaps,” he said.
Anand also stressed that the Malaysian Bar does not regard a single high-stakes examination as the ideal measure of professional readiness.
“The second area of reform concerns assessment methodology. The Malaysian Bar believes a competency-based approach – one that evaluates practical judgment, advocacy, drafting and professional conduct through a mix of assessment methods – is better suited to producing lawyers who are ready for practice,” he said.
Separately, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) M. Kulasegaran said he had been informed by the Common Bar Course Task Force that groundwork was underway to replace the CLP with a modern, practice-based qualification.
“This new Bar course is intended to build real-world competence and better prepare law graduates for pupillage and legal practice,” he wrote in a Facebook post on May 26.
He said the evidence-based reform, informed by a comprehensive needs analysis involving nearly 1,500 stakeholders, would place greater emphasis on practical readiness.
“It aims to ensure future lawyers are equipped not only with a sound understanding of Malaysian law, but also strong oral advocacy skills, bilingual proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia and English, and a firm grounding in professional ethics.
“Most importantly, this will be a course that places greater emphasis on legal practice rather than theory. More details will be announced once finalised,” he wrote.
