Our second full Board meeting of the year took place on 16 April 2026. The minutes will be published on our website in the usual way, but in the meantime, here are a few of the highlights.
Post Mazur Appeal Judgment: we reviewed progress following last month’s Court of Appeal judgment and the continued progress we are making in granting standalone litigation practice rights. We were pleased to see that we have now granted 900 new practice rights and that applications continue to be processed within the 11-week deadline to which we committed. The quality of applications continues to improve, following the extra guidance and support we have provided and reflecting the hard work of Chartered Legal Executives.
We welcomed the ruling of the Appeal Court and agreed we should work closely with the LSB, SRA, CILEX and others to provide clear guidance on what is required. In response to concerns raised about our processes and responsiveness, we agreed that the July Board will receive a lessons learned report, once the bulk of outstanding litigation Practice Rights applications have been processed. Finally, we agreed that in the light of the last few months, the acquisition of practice rights remains the surest and best route to provide certainty for Chartered Legal Executives working in litigation and other reserved areas, and we will work with CILEX to explain the benefits of obtaining them.
Stakeholders Perception Research: we received a report on the stakeholders perception research carried out earlier in the year. We are grateful to everyone who participated in the survey. We noted that those who had more interaction with CRL on a regular basis, for example regulated entities, had a more positive perception of CRL. Equally those who worked in litigation were often highly critical, possibly a reflection of the uncertainties and distress experienced following the Mazur judgment. Finally, we noted there remains a lot of confusion about the respective roles of CRL and CILEX. We agreed to build on this research over the next few months to help improve meaningful engagement with the regulated community, and other stakeholders and to provide the sharper guidance and process transparency sought. The Board will have a more detailed discussion of the research findings at our strategy meeting in May. We will share further details of the actions we will be taking in response to the research following this meeting
Enforcement: we received an update on the review of our enforcement work. We agreed in principle to introduce a package of structural and operational improvements to make the system quicker, more effective and proportionate. We will consult formally on this package before the summer.
Operations: we received the usual series of papers on operational performance. We were pleased that there is now renewed interest in entity applications, that the processing times of QE and WBL applications have improved and that our annual CPD sampling exercise is underway. We will also publish shortly our latest report on the diversity of CILEX authorised entities. The report shows that there is a higher proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in our firms, but fewer males. We also welcomed the strength of applications for both professional and lay members on our Panels and endorsed 14 new appointments.
Next Meeting: Our next Board meeting combined with our annual strategy session will be taking place 11 and 12 May 2026.
If you would like to know more please access our website, read our Board papers or get in touch.
