What is qualifying employment? 

Qualifying employment is work experience that helps you develop your competence to meet the entry requirements to become a Chartered Legal Executive.

To meet the qualifying employment requirements, you need to show that your role is made up of at least 20 hours ‘wholly legal work’ a week and that you have at least three years of employment that we define as qualifying.

Although it’s not compulsory to have your qualifying employment assessed before you apply to become a Chartered Legal Executive, we strongly advise that you do.  If you don’t have your role assessed before you submit your  work-based learning portfolio, we won’t assess your portfolio until we have assessed your qualifying employment. This can make the application process longer, particularly if your role and work history haven’t met our requirements.

How do you demonstrate your qualifying employment?

We ask you to demonstrate your qualifying employment by completing the qualifying employment application form and paying the fee. You need to complete the application form as fully as possible so that we can judge from the information you have provided that:

• you are working in a role which contains enough legal work in order for you to develop your competence and your career progression to the point that you make your application
• you are supervised by a legally qualified person (if not you may still be able to meet our requirements, but we will have to refer your application to our Admissions and Licensing Committee (ALC) which oversees all individual admissions at CILEx Regulation. You will also need to provide a reference from your current employer that supports your application

This is because when you apply to be a Chartered Legal Executive, you need to show that:

• you have a work history of at least three years that we define as qualifying employment
• you have at least two years of continuous qualifying employment immediately preceding your application (this is so that we can see that you have current experience in legal practice). You can take a break of up to 12 months for any reason without breaking the continuity requirement

There is more detailed guidance available here.