AGY-1097 | Joint Examinations Board [Barristers and Solicitors Admission Boards]

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The Joint Examinations Board comprised the Challis Professor of Law in the University of Sydney as President, two Supreme Court Judges, two practising barristers, and one representative of the Faculty of Law in the University of Sydney. This Board was administered jointly by the Barristers Admission Board and the Solicitors Admission Board for the purpose of conducting all examinations leading to the Diploma in Law. The Joint Examinations Board continued the work of its predecessor agency - the Examinations Board of the Solicitors Admission Board - in terms of reports on legal education, appointment of examiners, examination results, exemptions from examinations, reviewing examination costs, and drafting examination rules. However, its primary purpose was the assimilation of the barrister and solicitor admission courses in scope and standard to that of the University of Sydney's Bachelor Degree in Law. (1) The composition of the Joint Examinations Board was changed over time reflecting the expansion and evolving nature of legal education. From 1 January 1987 the composition of the Board included - * Three judges of the Supreme Court nominated by the Chief Justice * Three practising barristers nominated by the Council of the New South Wales Bar Association * Three practising solicitors nominated by the Council of the Law Society of New South Wales * Three professors of Law from the University of Sydney, UNSW and Macquarie University and the head of the Faculty of Law at the New South Wales Institute of Technology (from 1988 the University of Technology, Sydney). * Three full-time law teachers being one from the University of Sydney, UNSW and Macquarie University * The senior full-time lecturer of the Law Extension Committee. (2) The Secretary of the Barristers Admission Board and the Solicitors Admission Board acted as the Secretary of the Joint Examinations Board. Under the Legal Practitioners Transitional Admission Rules 1994 the Legal Qualifications Committee replaced the Joint Examinations Board from 15 April 1994. (3) FOOTNOTES: (1) Bennett J.M. (Ed) A History of the New South Wales Bar, The Law Book Company, Sydney 1969 page 234. (2) Annual Report of the New South Wales Attorney General's Department for the year ended 30 June 1987 page 168. (3) New South Wales Government Gazette 15 April 1994 pp. 1610 - 1611.