Social Mobility Commission praises CILEx for promoting access to law during Professions Week

22 October 2013

On Monday, 21 October, the Rt Hon Baroness Gillian Shepherd, Deputy Chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission stressed the need to “look at non-university routes into professions” at the Professions Week launch at the House of Commons, attended by an audience of professional associations and students.

The Commission’s recent social mobility report: “State of the Nation 2013: social mobility and child poverty in Great Britain” commends the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) for its flexible entry routes and says: “CILEx continues to provide an important pathway to qualification as a lawyer for those who have not been to university.”

CILEx is one of the founding bodies of the UK’s first Professions Week. Taking place throughout this week, the initiative is a springboard for CILEx to increase awareness of the non-university routes into the legal profession for 14-19-year-olds and careers advisers.

During Professions Week, CILEx’s team of Regional Development Officers will visit schools, colleges and universities across England and Wales to give legal careers advice to students.

Kempston based CILEx will engage with local schools in Bedfordshire and already has the backing of Richard Fuller, MP for Bedford and Kempston. Mr Fuller said: “It is fantastic that an institution like CILEx is in my constituency. It is so well-connected and it is excellent that it is here to help people understand what their options are.”

“CILEx’s involvement in Professions Week means that young people have the opportunity to learn about a career as a professional; they have such a competitive future ahead of them full of tremendous opportunities and it is wonderful that CILEx will be visiting Hastingsbury Business and Enterprise College and Bedford Free School to promote their alternative routes into law.”

Oliver Chesters-Lewis, a year 10 pupil from Bedford Free School said: “CILEx has really opened my eyes to the different ways you can become a lawyer and I now know that I want to become a criminal lawyer. I also know that I could become a legal apprentice after I leave school or study with CILEx part time while I am working at a law firm and still become a qualified lawyer instead of going to university.”

Professions Week runs from 21 to 27 October, click here for more information.

To read the report: “State of the Nation 2013: social mobility and child poverty in Great Britain” click here.

ENDS

Pictured above: CILEx students attended the Professions Week launch, from left to right: Larissa Bayliss, Legal Apprentice at DAC Beachcroft; Danielle Owen, Legal Apprentice at Thomas Eggar; Lewis McAuley, Legal Apprentice at Kennedys; James Green, Trainee Legal Executive at Field Fisher Waterhouse; Damilola Muyi, Trainee Legal Executive at Field Fisher Waterhouse; Georgia Francis, Legal Apprentice at Kennedys.