08 November 2012

CILEx and College of Law join forces to offer ‘one-stop shop’ training service for legal organisations

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) and The College of Law (CoL) have formed a strategic collaboration to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ delivering training solutions to the legal services sector.

Under the agreement the two organisations are offering a complementary training service, which meets the differing training needs of legal professionals from all backgrounds and at all stages of their career, from apprentices through to partners and heads of legal.

The collaboration aims to offer a pragmatic response to one of the major discussion points of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR), the need to have more flexible routes of entry into, and progression through, the legal profession, with recognised qualifications for both graduates and non-graduates.

As part of the partnership, the CoL will advise clients on the full range of solutions to their training needs for all staff ranging from school leavers to fully qualified lawyers, drawing on the expertise of CILEx for support staff, paralegal and Chartered Legal Executive courses.

It is the only training service in the legal market to offer recognised qualifications at every level and provides different points of entry and exit dependent on employees’ previous experience and educational background and their career goals.

Noel Inge, Managing Director of CILEx-owned law school, ILEX Tutorial College (ITC) said: “Our experience is that legal service providers want to be convinced about the business benefits their organisation can gain from training. Where these organisations need to develop their paralegal and support staff’s technical proficiency or perhaps provide a career path to become a Chartered Legal Executive, then we will work with the College to meet their training needs. This approach is absolutely right for the fast changing legal services industry.”

Professor Nigel Savage, Chief Executive of The College of Law, said: “This agreement brings together two organisations who are the leaders in their fields and represents a practical and pragmatic approach to the issues being addressed in the LETR. While the LETR is set to publish its final recommendations in December, the College and CILEx are ahead of the game by already putting forward solutions for the changing face of the legal profession. Considering the strong positions we occupy in our respective marketplaces and the growth of paralegal employment in UK legal services we believe that this partnership will be very positive for both organisations.”

This partnership between The CoL and CILEx follows the successful collaboration between the two organisations and leading law firm Irwin Mitchell to launch the ground-breaking IMU Law and Business School in 2011. The innovative scheme delivers career-spanning training programmes from The CoL and ITC that include people from all backgrounds and qualification routes, in order to meet Irwin Mitchell’s business objectives and deliver outstanding client service.

Catherine Kenwright, Head of Knowledge Management and Learning Services at Irwin Mitchell said: “We began working separately with the CoL and ITC in 2009 and launched the IMU Law and Business School in May 2011, providing bespoke career-spanning learning programmes and qualifications for all our people. Both the CoL and ITC are committed to delivering high class legal education for our sector and working with them both has ensured that the whole IM team, from paralegal to partner, are equipped with the legal and business skills needed to provide continued high quality and life-long services to our clients. It is great to see Irwin Mitchell’s own vision of three years ago being further developed into a new and direct relationship between ITC and the CoL. We wish them both every success in this new and exciting venture”

CILEx and the COL are exploring further collaborative opportunities and plan to submit joint contributions to the work being carried out by Skills for Justice to develop National Occupational Standards, nationally recognised qualifications and national apprenticeships for paralegals.

ENDS