Getting ready to make your qualifying employment application
Qualifying employment is work experience that helps you to develop your competence so that you can meet the entry requirements as a Chartered Legal Executive.
Although it’s not compulsory to have your qualifying employment assessed before you make your application to become a Chartered Legal Executive, we strongly advise you to do so, as it will give you the reassurance that you are able to meet this compulsory element of admission. If you don’t have your role assessed prior to submitting your Work-Based Learning portfolio, we will assess your qualifying employment at the same time and this can make the application process longer and you risk your employment not meeting the required standard.
What is qualifying employment?
The qualifying employment element of the process requires that you demonstrate that your role is made up of at least 20 hours ‘wholly legal work’ a week and you can show qualifying employment for at least three years.
How do you demonstrate your qualifying employment to us?
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 in our Resource Library here.
