The flexibility of the doctrine of confidence and its adaptability to illsorted and disparate situations has often attracted academic attention, but although it continues to develop, its ability to protect privacy has not perhaps been sufficiently emphasised in recent discussions of both privacy and confidence,despite the debate generated by the (recently abandoned) proposals for a new tort of invasion of privacy. The notion that developments in the doctrine of confidence could properly render it apt to protect privacy came under attack by Wilson in 1990 on the ground that legal obligations to maintain confidence of intolerably uncertain scope might arise as a result of the normal incidents of social life and friendship.

Martha Nussbaum's recent article “Equity and Mercy” eloquently advocates the continued relevance of a tradition of ethical and legal thought—the “equity tradition”—that has been neglected by legal philosophers in recent times. That neglect is partly due to the fact that contemporary legal philosophy (as in the debate between H.L.A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin) has concerned itself with the prior question of whether judges should or need to exercise discretion. The equity tradition presupposes an affirmative answer to that question where the rigorous application of a law yields a sufficiently grave injustice in the circumstances of a particular case or where such an injustice would arise because of a “gap” in the law. Yet it might have been thought prudent for those who assert the ineradicability and value of adjudicative discretion to have embraced and developed the idea of equity.

I propose to examine the underlying philosophy of the recent First Report on Legal Education and Training by the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct (ACLEC), and also some of the practical implications of the Report, particularly for university law schools.

It was a stimulating experience to be able to work on this Report which reflects the collective wisdom and experience of all seventeen members of ACLEC and draws on the views expressed by its consultation panels and the large number of respondents to its consultation papers. It is important to stress that the Committee's expertise is not simply that of the two law teachers on the Committee or the two barristers, two solicitors and two judges, but also that of the lay majority of the Committee whose experience is that of consumers of legal services, social researchers, educators and in other professions. In reflecting this breadth of experience, it is a Report unique in the annals of British legal education.