A new look for CILEX

CILEX chief executive Linda Ford talks about the new CILEX brand and plans to transform the legal profession

Over the coming weeks, you will start to see a new look and feel to our communications. Informed by member and employer feedback and designed to improve public perceptions, our new brand is more modern and dynamic. It reflects our purpose, which is “to develop, support and inspire a highly skilled body of legal professionals and make the UK legal sector more efficient, more representative and better able to serve society”.

As specialist lawyers, from a wide range of backgrounds and having had the benefit of gaining greater practice experience whilst qualifying, you are more able to meet the evolving needs of clients and to command the public’s trust and confidence. The new brand recognises and promotes this.

To clarify, CILEX is not changing its name, we continue to be registered as The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and our Fellows continue to hold a practising certificate as a Chartered Legal Executive (CLE). We are however, utilising our existing CILEX acronym more prominently in our new branding to provide a simpler, more recognisable identity.

Transforming the legal profession

Alongside the branding we have developed a clear strategy reflecting our mission “to transform the legal profession by educating, developing and supporting our members to deliver high-quality, legal services for the benefit of society as a whole”.

To achieve this, we have committed to:

• Celebrating difference;
• Challenging outdated perceptions;
• Combining technical expertise with practical insight and emotional intelligence; and
• Providing opportunities without barriers.

This mission requires us to have a clear strategy and business plan which we have developed around three key aims to deliver:

• Relevant high-quality training – through the launch of our new CILEX Professional Qualification
• Ongoing professional development - through our practice rights top-up programme and enhanced range of CPD products and career development support services
• Advocacy for our members - through our policy and public affairs Campaign for Change.

You can find out more about each of these priorities on our website.

As part of this work, we have sought to tackle the longstanding issue that few outside of CILEX have any idea what a CLE is or what they can do. The term CLE has been the subject of confusion in both the workplace and amongst consumers and, as many of you report, has a lack of recognition compared to solicitors.

In comparison, by describing yourselves as CILEX Lawyers, a term many of you have told us you already use informally, clients and colleagues will be able to more clearly understand your status as lawyers who qualified through the CILEX route.

By establishing CILEX Paralegal and Advanced Paralegals as defined designations, we are also able to offer a professional identity to those groups within our membership and to provide clear outcomes for each stage of our qualification. By providing a progressive career pathway from trainee to paralegal through to fully qualified lawyer with practice rights, employers will better understand the skills and capabilities that CILEX members have and therefore the jobs you can do.

This will help address many of the barriers to recognition and progression within the workplace born out of a lack of understanding of the CILEX route.

Parity through practice rights

Branding alone will not be enough to establish the parity of status CILEX Lawyers deserve alongside their solicitor and barrister counterparts.

Employers will better understand the skills and capabilities that CILEX members have and therefore the jobs you can do

In tackling this issue, we have sought to understand the drivers for the perceptions, attitudes and misunderstanding held within law firms and the wider profession. A key factor is that CLEs, despite being qualified lawyers, can only undertake most reserved legal activities under the supervision and direction of an authorised person. This includes exercising rights of audience (advocacy), litigation, probate activities and reserved instrument activities (including some aspects of conveyancing).

This authorised person is usually a solicitor. In most law firms, this supervision and direction is built into processes in a way which is largely invisible. It does, however, contribute to the perception that a solicitor is more qualified than a CLE as they are required to supervise aspects of their work.

Practice rights address this issue, as a CLE with relevant rights can practise fully independently within their specialism and therefore with equivalence to a solicitor.

This is why supporting as many members as possible to obtain practice rights, whether through CPQ or the top-up route, is a key priority for us.

Your experience in the workplace

We will also be running a survey later this year to capture more detail about your experiences in the workplace, to be able to evidence the barriers and prejudices that you face.

This will allow us to work with the Law Society, judiciary and industry to challenge the outdated and discriminatory attitudes that drive these behaviours and to educate them on the capabilities and value CILEX Lawyers and paralegals bring to the delivery of legal services.

CILEX is proud to represent you, our members, and we believe with our new branding, the implementation of a progressive career path leading to recognised professional designation and our efforts to simultaneously tackle legislative, policy and attitudinal barriers, we will make much greater progress in ensuring you have access to the full range of career opportunities the sector can offer.