Outcomes of LSSA Conveyancing Task Team’s first meeting of 2020

The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) would like to notify legal practitioners that its Conveyancing Task Team is meeting regularly and had its first meeting for 2020 on 16 January.

The Task Team was established by the LSSA’s House of Constituents (HoC) in 2019 to review the concerns on the poor pass rate for the conveyancing admission examination. The LSSA is grateful that the Legal Practice Council approved most of its recommendations for various interventions regarding the exam which will be put in place in 2020.

During its meeting, the Task Team reviewed the overall provisional results of the first conveyancing exam (September 2019) after its recommendations. The results did not show great improvement in most provinces and the Task Team expects that the marks will be higher this year as the interventions take effect.

Conveyancing mentorship programmes
In August 2019, the LSSA introduced a pilot mentorship programme in Mthatha and Polokwane. The Task Team noted that the current mentees in the pilot programme did not write the September 2019 examination and several had indicated that they would only be writing the examination at the August 2020 sitting. The Task Team is optimistic that the mentorship programme will bear fruit as it is rolled out in other cities and towns.
The LSSA calls on all conveyancers to support the LSSA Mentorship Programme. It is up to the existing conveyancers to see that there is effective skill transfer in the profession. It is incumbent on each conveyancer in South Africa to make sure that the programme is a success.

LEAD conveyancing course
The LSSA would like to make legal practitioners aware that those who are registering for the upcoming LEAD (Legal Education and Development) Conveyancing Course will not have completed it in time for the first conveyancing examination sitting in February 2020. The reason is that in 2020, the LPC has brought forward the first examination sitting from April to February, while the LEAD course is scheduled to run from 01 February to 04 April 2020.

Practitioners writing the conveyancing examination in February are urged to enrol for the LEAD three-day exam preparatory course. Please see the details below:

City Dates in 2020 Times
Cape Town 17, 18 and 20 Feb 17:30 – 21:00
Durban 17, 18 and 20 Feb 17:30 – 21:00
Pretoria 12, 13, 14 Feb 2020 15:00 – 18:00

Cost: R800
Contact: Molalatladi Modiba on Tel +27 (0)12 441 4655 or molalatladi@LSSALEAD.org.za.

Click here to download brochure

The possibility of extending the three-day course to other areas is being investigated.

Read more about the conveyancing task team here.