CILEx

CILEx Professional Qualification:
a new horizon

This article explains the ethos behind the establishment and delivery of the new CILEx Professional Qualification. See also next pages of this issue.

About the author: Professor Stephen Lee is Chair of CILEx Law School.

CILEx, like all professional institutions, looks to protect and promote its reputation in a positive manner. Professional bodies maintain a positive reputation by balancing effective support for their members - at every stage of their professional career - with a concern to maintain the broader civic trust and confidence vested in them by the government, employers and the general public.

Two things are central to professional bodies achieving this balance. The first is their continuing commitment to creating and policing clearly articulated standards of professional practice. The second is establishing the means of delivery by which the knowledge and practice necessary to meet those standards of practice can be produced, by their members, in full.

In CILEx, standards of practice are maintained within the Professional Board, supported and upheld through CILEx Regulation. The ability of CILEx Lawyers to meet these standards of professional practice is achieved, in no small part, through the development and delivery of a programme of education. This then forms the basis and grounding for the establishment and delivery of the new CILEx Professional Qualification (CPQ).

The CILEx Professional Qualification

To be properly recognised, any such educational qualification must:

be accessible and inclusive to the body of learners that it seeks to support;
be robustly developed and authenticated through independent assessment of learning and progression;
deliver demonstrable practical understanding and competence of the law; and
assure the attainment of enhanced professional skills.

The CPQ meets each of these challenges head-on. The professional standards and educational competencies that underpin the learning embraced within the new CPQ have, themselves, been rigorously developed over the past three years. Formulated initially within the remit of the Professional Board, the educational competences that have emerged from the underpinning core standards of professional practice embraced within the new qualification have been the subject of widespread scrutiny and consultation.

Rightly, this process has involved learners, CILEx members, employers and regulators alongside educational professionals within and outside CILEx. The objective has been to construct a comprehensive programme of educational development designed meet the demands of the workplace now and in the years to come.

To achieve this, in a fast-changing world driven increasingly by technological advancement and growing professional practice complexity, the structure adopted for the new qualification is deliberately modular in nature. This helps to ensure that inclusive access to learning is promoted at every stage of module development, and that the educational modules themselves can be delivered to a defined, tested and agreed standard of quality in different locations, using varied teaching methods and by a range of educational providers.

Adoption of this modular approach reflects the pace of growth in professional practice, and promotes opportunities for refinement and amendment to the CPQ curriculum and syllabus as advances in knowledge and practice dictate. It also affords effective integration with Continuing Professional Development for all CILEx members, at every stage of their professional development.

The staged, developmental approach adopted throughout the CPQ provides a clear and progressive pathway for individual learning, which assures both the attainment of requisite professional competences and the legal knowledge necessary and directly associated with career progression as a lawyer.

Progression through the CPQ goes further

Commercial competence, personal development skills and appropriate ethical considerations are all integrated into every aspect of curriculum development. In turn, then, the knowledge development, evidence of enhanced practical experience and attested professional competence delivered by the CPQ will also enable the integration of CPQ progression with the advancement of individual members within the membership structure of the Chartered Institute itself.

It is right that the development of the new CPQ has been undertaken in a suitably rigorous and independent manner. It is equally important that the core standards that underpin the educational competencies within the CPQ have been independently set by CILEx Regulation.

Employer confidence in the quality, objectivity and independence of assessment, and in student progression, will be assured by CILEx as it acts as the Independent Awarding Body for the qualification. Separate arrangements have also been established to designate and assure quality control across alternate types of licensed education provider - each will be held accountable to the CILEx Awarding Body.

Delivery of the new qualification must be both widespread, inclusive and accessible to learners from all backgrounds, and to those with a variety of different learning preferences and styles.

New important initiatives to promote greater inclusion and participation in CILEx education are currently nearing completion within the CILEx Foundation. Over time, we hope that this commitment can and will be matched by forward-looking employers in professional practice and in both the private and public sector.

Look out for positive announcements regarding scholarship and bursary opportunities in the coming months.

Broadening educational opportunities

CILEx also remains committed to broadening education opportunities to the many through continuing partnerships with central government education initiatives (apprenticeships, accelerated further education provision etc). Changes elsewhere to the nature and the structure of the solicitors’ qualification moving forward will also offer new opportunities for our CPQ in both further and higher education provision. CILEx will be expansive in its commitment to partnership and participation in the delivery of the new CPQ in both of these growing markets; however, in each case it will remain rigorous with respect to the equity with which this commitment is applied and in the management of the assurance of quality control.

A special role continues for CILEx Law School

We owe much to the past and continuing ‘thought leadership’ demonstrated and delivered by CILEx Law School (CLS). This is not the place to dwell over previous successes and the many industry awards that CLS continues to amass, not least in expanding access to legal education through blended learning provision and in the leadership role taken in legal apprenticeship delivery. Our Law School continues to deliver world-class, professional legal education, often to audiences that would otherwise remain excluded.

The launch of the CPQ also brings fresh challenge and impetus to the work of CLS. Our Law School gives us access to a wealth of experience and expertise in the design and development of teaching and learning materials that will support delivery of the new qualification; characteristically, colleagues have met this challenge in both a collegiate and positive manner. CILEx Law School will continue to play a key role in delivering accessible, high-quality education courses, together with CPD and transition programmes, setting a benchmark for CPQ training provision. It is also why, the Law School, our Law School, will be rebranded and positioned at the heart of the CILEx family.

The CPQ: an important education focal point

The launch of the CPQ represents a new and important educational focal point for the professional development of CILEx Lawyers, and for the advancement of the legal profession as a whole.

It delivers a comprehensive suite of education designed to meet the needs of learners, providers, employers, regulators and the legal profession, as they focus on contemporary challenges and advance their professional careers. It is a qualification that is rigorous in composition and content, yet accessible in implementation and delivery. In CILEx and beyond, we should embrace the new CPQ and use the power of education to further transform the manner in which CILEx distinctively delivers inclusion and advancement through merit, rather than mystique, in the legal profession.