CILEx Board

CILEx Board: ‘Our lawyers are different and better’

It is a year since the CILEx Board was established to set and own the strategy, promote the reputation of CILEx members and ensure the organisation is fit for the future.

About the author: Professor Chris Bones is Chair of CILEx Board.

The delivery of legal services is changing, yet the legal profession, as a whole, does not have a reputation for agility in the face of a changing world and the impact this has on the application of the law and the access to justice is obvious. What is far less obvious, especially to the potential consumer of legal services, is that not all lawyers are the same and some are better placed, and more willing, to innovate to both their own advantage and that of the wider public.

CILEx lawyers, in my experience of the past 18 months, are the exception to any of the usual stereotypes applied to the profession as a whole. The way they qualify gives them a deep understanding of how the law is applied on a day-to-day basis.

The areas in which our lawyers specialise means engagement with the public at critical times in their lives, where the value of ‘an expert’ can make the difference between a good and a bad outcome. The diversity of their backgrounds makes CILEx lawyers far more likely to be able to empathise with their clients, and in so doing help them make better decisions. This does not just make us different lawyers: it makes us better lawyers.

Our challenge in the Chartered Institute is to ensure that, as the sector finally begins to adjust to the 21st century, CILEx not only protects this difference, but also drives changes in our own activities which enhance our reputation and position the CILEx route into the law as an attractive, relevant and rewarding career decision.

Drivers of change

Change in our sector is being driven from a number of different directions:

Regulation The Legal Services Board has laid out a path of change for all professional bodies in the sector that will redefine significantly the relationship between the professional body and its regulator.

Education The launch of apprenticeships across the sector and the entry of universities into the apprenticeship market are disrupters and pose challenges to the traditional routes into the profession.

Competition Legal services are no longer delivered solely through legal firms. The sector is also fragmenting, with specific service providers entering the market often using online as their route to market. This creates both risk and opportunity as the market develops further.

Technology Machine learning solutions are already playing a role in transforming the business models of large firms and enabling market entry by non-traditional providers. The implications going forward, as they develop further and are adopted more widely, could be transformational not just for delivery models, but also for roles and employment.

These layout some significant challenges that we as an organisation need to address. In addressing them we can ensure that current and future members of CILEx will be able to develop themselves and their careers to the fullest possible extent. These are:

Understanding what combination of skills, knowledge and attitudes will make a successful lawyer over the next 10 to 20 years, such that our educational standards and education delivery are creating effective lawyers who are attractive to employers and/or able to set up their own practice to compete effectively in the market.
Understanding how to support members build new skills and knowledge. Help them adopt new ways of working to enable the exploitation the arrival of new technologies and alternative career paths.
Developing new channels for connecting and networking to allow CILEx lawyers to exploit to the full the opportunities offered by membership of the Chartered Institute.
Establishing an effective and efficient regulatory body that can operate as independently as possible within the current legislation without adding cost to members or reducing funding for the organisation as a whole.
Communicating the value of being a CILEx lawyer and employing CILEx lawyers. Despite the huge advances we have made in establishing equivalence, it is clear that the myth of a CILEx lawyer being a ‘second-rate professional’ still perpetuates; moreover, it is obvious that potential consumers of legal services have no idea of the differences between the three types of lawyer, nor the potential value of working with a specialist when executing a house purchase or a will, for example.

CILEx responds

In response to these challenges, the CILEx Board has set some very clear goals for CEO, Linda Ford, and her executive team. We have asked them to ensure that the strategy, which will be formally approved later this year, includes the following plans:

To go further and faster in our move to reinforce the independence of our regulator It is in the public interest - and in our own - that CILEx members are regulated in a structure which is as separate as possible under the current legislation, and the Chartered Institute is moving forward to make this happen as quickly as possible.

To transform our education and professional development We want to accelerate the launch of our new qualification to ensure that CILEx members are better prepared for the future of legal services than those who follow alternative routes. We are also looking hard at how CILEx can support current members develop additional capabilities, so they continue to be attractive in the job market, run their own businesses effectively, and stay competitive and best placed to exploit the opportunities to move into senior legal roles.

To promote the relevance and positive impact of CILEx lawyers both across providers and consumers of legal services In this too we will continue to focus on professional equivalence and work with the government and employers to ensure that all legal professionals are treated with equal respect.

To achieve these goals and to accelerate the pace at which we are working on them, we have made a number of decisions that have focused on the management of the organisation and its subsidiaries in particular. These decisions ensure that the CEO has direct control of every part of the organisation (excluding the regulator) and that the senior executive team runs CILEx (excluding the regulator) as an integrated entity, with a shared strategy and shared goals. We have also led an inclusive programme of activity that is building an integrated strategy to move us forward and strengthen our balance sheet.

This focus has resulted in changes in key personnel aimed at strengthening the organisation’s leadership and ensuring that the CEO has a senior team committed to making change happen. There is no room for attitudes that divide us into competing camps and, as a Board, we are completely committed to making sure there is an open, positive and collaborative culture across every subsidiary.

Our focus for members is to ensure that great services and support are provided at an appropriate cost, and we continue to review this at every meeting. We are very conscious that you have appointed us to ensure the organisation is effective, and I want to assure you that we take this part of our role very seriously.

This is our moment

If I have taken anything away from my first year as Chair of your Board, it is this: CILEx lawyers are remarkable. They are the lawyers most likely to provide the core legal services consumed by members of the public; they are far more likely to be reflective of the public who use their services; and they are far more likely to give value for money.

CILEx lawyers stand out because they understand the practise of law, having learned their professional skills through application as well as through education. All this suggests that CILEx is best placed to take advantage of all the change around us and establish plans to maximise our opportunity.

CILEx lawyers are different and better: our job is to ensure that we continue to maintain that, sustain it and make it something sought after by both providers and consumers of legal services.