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 current 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.
Please also see our FAQ page, this includes information (in relation to qualifying employment), for people who may have been `furloughed’ under the new Jobs Retention Scheme.
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:
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- 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 (including at least one year in the graduate grade of membership). 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
This interactive webinar provides more detailed guidance.
Character and suitability requirements to become a Chartered Legal Executive
By applying to have your employment assessed against the Qualifying Employment criteria, CILEx Regulation recognise this as an intention to apply to become a Chartered Legal Executive in the future.
As a result, if you are a member of CILEx at the time you apply to have your employment assessed against the Qualifying Employment criteria, we will ask you some questions about your background through a statement of prior conduct in the application form. By completing this declaration, you are confirming that you want your suitability for admission as a Chartered Legal Executive to be assessed by CILEx Regulation in accordance with the Enforcement Rules and in line with the Code of Conduct.
This means that the Rehabilitation of Offender’s Act will not apply to you and that any spent convictions/cautions (that are not protected) will be considered as part of the assessment.
Notice for applicants who are not currently members of CILEx
If you are not a member of CILEx when you apply to have your employment assessed against the Qualifying Employment criteria you are not required to complete the prior conduct questions and you will not have your character and suitability assessed to become a Chartered Legal Executive as part of the application.
Instead, assessment of your character and suitability will take place at the point you apply to become a member of CILEx. If you have prior conduct then it may affect your ability to become a member of CILEx and/or to be authorised as a Chartered Legal Executive.
If you are not currently a member of CILEx but would still like to apply to have your employment assessed, then please contact us at qeapplications@cilexregulation.org.uk to request a non-member Qualifying Employment application form.
