College offers one-stop training shop

A NEW combined professional development unit designed to provide a one-stop training shop for lawyers in the UK has been launched by the College of Law.

The unit links the college's Professional Skills Course and its Continuous Professional Development programme with video training service Legal Network Television (LNTV).

Based at the college's Bream's Buildings premises, the unit provides video, public and in-house training courses.

The service was proposed by Alexandrina Le Clezio, previously head of education at Herbert Smith, who joined the college as director of professional development last year.

Le Clezio was appointed to restructure the professional development programme to make it "more responsive" to the needs of the profession. She is now returning to the City as deputy head of training at Linklaters & Paines.

The Combined Professional Development Unit is headed by LNTV chief executive Peter Brindley, who will be supported by a panel of directors.

"What we're hoping to achieve is a unit which brings the various aspects of the college together," says Brindley.

"The profession has all kinds of different needs. By combining resources, which have been rather fragmented, we will ensure everyone gets the kind of training they want, in the form they want, when they want it."