All applicants, CILEX members, CILEX Practitioners and individuals holding approved roles in our Authorised Entity firms are required to declare and provide details of certain conduct that may affect your suitability to become, or remain, a regulated legal professional (referred to as “prior conduct”).
You must complete a prior conduct declaration at the earliest opportunity after the conduct occurs, in every application for CILEX membership or authorisation, and when renewing your CILEX membership each year. If you hold an approved role in an Authorised Entity, you must also complete a prior conduct declaration with any annual return.
Guidance on the type of conduct that must be declared is available here.
Changes to the declaration process from August 2021
Completing a prior conduct declaration previously meant answering a series of prior conduct questions on an online, or paper, form at each stage above. This has now changed.
You must now complete a declaration through the conduct declaration page of your myCILEx account where you will be prompted to follow these three steps:
- Carefully read through the prior conduct guidance notes to ensure that you have correctly understood what needs to be declared.
- Review any prior conduct you have declared since August 2019 (i.e. prior conduct questions that you have previously answered “yes” to) by clicking the link to the “My Conduct Cases” page of your account.
- Select one of two statements to confirm that either:
A. The information we hold about your previous declaration(s) is still correct and that you have nothing new to declare; or
B. That you need to complete a new declaration by answering the prior conduct questions.
If you select statement A, your prior conduct declaration will be complete. If you select statement B you will need to answer the prior conduct questions to complete your declaration. In either case you will be asked to answer some additional questions about your work before you can submit your declaration.
Which statement should you select?
If your previously declared conduct is the same but the circumstances have changed, please select Statement A and contact CILEx Regulation separately to provide an update. You do not need to answer the prior conduct questions again, unless CILEx Regulation asks you to.
You should only select statement B and answer the prior conduct questions if:
- There is no record of your prior conduct in the My Conduct Cases page of your myCILEX account;
- You are applying for CILEX membership for the first time;
- You are applying to reinstate your previous CILEX membership;
- You are applying to become a Chartered Legal Executive (Fellow), a CILEX Practitioner, or for an approved role in an Authorised Entity firm;
- You have something new to declare; or
- CILEx Regulation has advised you to answer the prior conduct questions again.
You must ensure that any information you provide as part of your declaration is correct as disciplinary action may be taken if you provide any false information.
If you are unsure about what to declare, or how to declare it, please contact CILEx Regulation.
