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The Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) was founded in 1892 and became a company limited by guarantee in 1963 with the support of the Law Society. It is the regulatory body responsible for the training and professional conduct of its 24,000 Members. The Institute is recognised as being one of the three core regulators of the legal profession alongside barristers and solicitors.

You may be surprised to learn that legal executives and solicitors do a very similar job, working alongside one another in private practice, local government and industry. In fact, wherever you will find solicitors, you are very likely to see Legal Executives working alongside. A client in private practice would, more than likely, not be aware, or care for that matter, that the lawyer working on their file is a solicitor or a legal executive.

Clients are less bothered than the profession it would seem about titles and categories of lawyers! Even more surprising perhaps to many is that the Legal Services Act 2007 has paved the way for legal executives to become partners in law firms, effectively removing the last major hurdle distinguishing the two professional bodies. As of October 2009 there are now over a 100 Legal Executive partners across the Country and this figure is rising weekly.

Legal executive advocates have the same rights of audience in court as solicitors in their chosen discipline, legal executives can become commissioners for oaths, work as autonomous practitioners and thanks to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 can apply for judicial positions in the same way as their solicitor colleagues. Whilst the ILEX route to qualification has traditionally been viewed as a non-graduate way to qualification, this is changing very quickly.

ILEX has just recently introduced a ‘Graduate Membership’ category for those who have a qualifying law degree and have undertaken the Institute’s practice papers examinations in a similar way to those undertaking the LPC. At that point you will be able to seek employment in a legal practice in any capacity as a trainee legal executive.

So what are the advantages of becoming a legal executive? The first is that you do not need a training contract! The regulations for ILEX Graduate Members with regards to ‘qualifying employment’ means that you can undertake this in any capacity such as fee-earner, legal assistant or even administrative work. Just as long as your work is being supervised by either a solicitor or legal executive. Contrast that with the solicitor route. In order to become a solicitor you must have a training contract. Any time spent, in any other capacity in a legal practice, does not count towards fully qualified status.

Training Contracts are harder to come by and more and more firms are taking on LPC graduates into paralegal positions. The time they spend as a paralegal is not counted towards fully qualified status. Not the case with trainee Legal Executives. The second major advantage in choosing the Legal Executive route into practice is cost. The ILEX route to professional practice is a much cheaper alternative to costly solicitor training.

Tuition fees are considerably less than those charged by LPC providers and if you take the Fast Track version of the programme you can complete your studies in just 9 weeks, thereby saving considerable sums on accommodation costs too.

The third advantage of becoming a Legal Executive is the current buoyancy of employment opportunities. Employers are viewing the ILEX route most favourably. Not constrained by having to offer costly training contracts, they know that trainee Legal Executives offer a versatility to their practices. Legal Executives can train in a variety of capacities in a legal practice, allowing them to undertake qualifying work whilst allowing employers the flexibility to use their skills wherever appropriate.

This is one of the reasons why more and more legal employers are looking to trainee Legal Executives to fill their vacancies and why the training contract option is becoming less favourable. The final advantage in becoming a fully qualified Legal Executive is the now virtually redundant post Legal Services Act 2007 which removed the last divisions between the professions.

However, it will be interesting for those who still want to qualify as a solicitor once they are fully qualified legal executives. Although you will still need to undertake the LPC, you will not need a training contract and you will be able to apply to be admitted to the Role of Solicitors immediately after your course ends successfully. In order to become Graduate Members of ILEX, you will need a qualifying law degree within the last 7 years and undertake a practice based course similar to the LPC.

You will study the following areas of legal practice: A compulsory Client Care Unit and two electives from the following: Civil Litigation, Criminal Litigation, Family Practice, Probate Practice, Conveyancing, Company & Partnership Formation, Employment Practice. One of the electives must correspond with an academic subject within your degree. The examinations are compiled and assessed by ILEX which is a qualification awarding body in its own right. The choice of electives does not preclude you from changing legal discipline later, it is just a requirement for Graduate Membership.

Just a word of warning. The ILEX route to qualification is not a ‘soft option’. The examinations are of a similar standard to those offered by LPC/BVC providers. Clearly, for ILEX Members to attain fully qualified status alongside solicitors and barristers, the examinations must be of the same standard.

You will need to put in as much time and dedication to your studies as with the other routes to qualification. Finally then, having read this you are perhaps a little surprised that you may not have heard of the legal executive option to fully qualified lawyer status. You are not alone. I, along with colleagues from ILEX itself, undertake regular tours of universities across the Country and we still find it incredible that students can complete a law degree without being given information about this valuable alternative.

Why is this do you think? Well, I can only put it down perhaps to outdated academic snobbery. There is still a view in some institutions, thankfully less and less, that the only options open to their students are to either become a solicitor or barrister. As Bob Dylan once sang ‘The times they are a changin’’.’ The Legal Services Act 2007 has brought a revolution to the provision of legal services and it is only natural that some take time to catch up.

My philosophy is simple. It is the principle that students are given informed choice. It is only when they know of all the choices available to them can they make an informed decision about the future direction of their careers. We live in exciting times for the profession and you are well placed, right at the beginning of the huge changes that have arrived. I hope that this article has played a small part in extending the choices available to you in this new legal world.

Adrian Mason is the Principal of Advance CPD, a private college wholly owned by a prestigious firm of provincial solicitors and the only institution in England & Wales offering the PGED Fast Track course to ILEX Graduate Membership for qualifying law graduates.

Adrian is also an ILEX chief examiner.

www.advancecpd.org.uk

www.ilex.org.uk