LDC pre-entry exams set to be restored

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Law graduates intending to join the bar course at the Law Development Centre (LDC) in the next academic year should brace for the return of pre-entry exams.

A source has revealed to New Vision that the Law Council, a statutory body mandated to regulate legal training in the country, is determined to restore the pre-entry exams as one of the measures to ensure the quality of lawyers produced.

“Yes, there is a problem with the numbers, but this can be managed because the Centre has opened many branches and also plans to open a new one in Fort Portal. But the major reason behind the reintroduction of the pre-entry exams is about quality. Teaching of law has been highly commercialised, and many law schools no longer care about the quality but money, and this explains the high failure rate at LDC,” the source said.

The bar course could also run for two academic years instead of the current nine months, according to proposals under consideration.

In addition to reinstating the pre-entry exams, the Law Council also intends to introduce national bar course exams, which will serve as a basis for admission to every university teaching law as part of the planned overhaul of legal education in the country.

This is intended to ensure that only suitable and qualified students are admitted to the various law schools.

Proponents of the move argue that this is the only way to improve the quality of lawyers in the country.

“We have a problem with quality. At LDC, we are supposed to focus on the practical part of the law, but you find a number of law graduates joining LDC, some of them have good results, but with a huge knowledge gap, and you wonder how they made it to the Centre,” a senior lecturer at LDC said.

However, when contacted, LDC senior public relations officer Frank Obonyo said the proposals have not yet been passed.

Meanwhile, LDC has organised a two-day stakeholders’ meeting, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday this week, to discuss the matter before calls for applications for the next academic year are announced.

Stakeholders will discuss the proposed introduction of national bar exams and how to strike a balance between accessibility to the profession and maintaining rigorous standards of competence and ethics. The outcome of the meeting will guide the Law Council on the new reforms.

After graduating with a law degree, graduates are required to pursue a Diploma in Legal Practice (bar course) at LDC in order to be enrolled as advocates of the courts of judicature in the country.

Background

The bar course pre-entry exams were introduced by Prof. Frederick Ssempebwa in 2010. Ssempebwa was at the time the chairperson of the Committee on Legal Education and Training at the Law Council.

However, they were suspended in 2019 for two years pending the conclusion of final legal procedures, opening a floodgate for lawyers across the country to join the bar course without being subjected to the exams.

This academic year, LDC received more than 4,000 applicants, forcing it to have two intakes—September 2024 and January 2025—who are set to sit their final exams in December this year.

Before the pre-entry exams at LDC were suspended, West Budama MP Jacob Oboth-Oboth, now the security minister, had planned to table a private member’s bill in Parliament seeking to amend Section 6 of the Advocates Act to, among other things, scrap the pre-entry exams for the bar course at LDC.

Section 6 of the Advocates Act gives the Law Council powers to regulate legal training and determine qualifications for the bar course.

Oboth argued that the idea of pre-entry exams had outlived its usefulness and was more commercial than academic, describing the process as one of “screening and sieving” those seeking to undertake legal training.

He cited countries such as Ghana and Kenya, which he said had already outlawed bar course pre-entry exams.

However, appearing before Parliament’s legal committee in April 2019, retired Justice Remmy Kasule—then Law Council chairperson—described the scrapping of pre-entry exams as a regrettable move, noting that it would grossly compromise the quality of advocates in the long run.