Grow your own fee earners

Supporting employees and moulding them to your ethos and culture creates a strong foundation for the success of your firm. But how can you invest in your support staff so that they invest in you?

Many partners are rethinking their business models and how they can get the right mix of people, with the right skills, at the right salary, doing work of the right level to keep their firms profitable. There are excellent legal practice course (LPC) graduates employed as paralegals in firms, but often this can lead to problems of retention, as their principal goal is usually to acquire a training contract and, as soon as they do, they’re off.

However, the concept of growing your own fee earners via the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) is becoming increasingly attractive for UK firms. Offering structured long-term career paths for support staff – whether they have A-levels, law degrees or no former legal qualifications – builds loyalty, widens access to the legal profession in the way that the Milburn Review called for and is cost-effective.

The CILEx route to qualifying as a lawyer currently costs from around £4,500 for those with no previous legal qualifications at level 3 (A-level standard) and level 6 (honours degree level). There’s also a route for law graduates that costs £2,200, a fraction of the price of an LPC.

CILEx has led the way with earning while learning for almost 50 years, so is acutely attuned to firms’ need for ?a flexible course delivery structure that fits around work. In the first year, an area of law and legal practice is studied, such as tort and civil litigation, together with the important skills of client care and legal research, while in full-time employment. These targeted qualifications give employees the ability and confidence to start fee-earning early in their career, providing ?a clear return on the training investment made.

There’s considerable interest too in legal apprenticeships. These are recent in development (CILEx is part of the steering group), but are already receiving considerable attention from firms. There’s a route for A-level school leavers this year on ?a legal administration apprenticeship and, from September 2013, there will be a paralegal apprenticeship.

If you recruit an apprentice who is under 19 on enrolment, 100 per cent of the training costs could be covered. It ties in well with diversity and CSR by offering a career in law to bright young people who may be put off from going to university because of the dread of leaving with up to £54,000 of debts and no job. Apprenticeships are a strong alternative to university and will link to the CILEx qualifications, giving young people the progression possibilities to lawyer status.

Currently, 75 per cent of firms that send their employees ?to study CILEx qualifications pay for or contribute to their training and see it as a healthy, high return investment for their firm’s future.

One such organisation is CILEx’s employer of the year, DWF, a national firm that, in September 2011, recruited six legal apprentices to join the firm’s Paralegal Academy on a career path into the legal profession as an alternative to attending university. They joined 19 other paralegals in the first DWF and CILEx learning cohort. All are supported by the firm to develop their skills and knowledge to become chartered ?legal executives.

Nicky Westhead, DWF’s head of organisational development, said: “We believe that this is an excellent route into the profession for junior employees who may not have seen themselves as high achievers at school. All six apprentices have settled in well and are successfully supporting other fee earners in the firm. One apprentice has already been promoted to a junior paralegal and is starting to manage their own files, demonstrating an excellent return on investment.”

Careers won’t stop there, though. Chartered legal executives can go on to become advocates in open court or partners, so the possibilities to benefit from successful careers are endless.

To find out more about CILEx routes, legal apprenticeships and creating affordable lawyers of the future, visit the employers’ section at www.cilexcareers.org.uk, email Gail Billingham on gbillingham@cilex.org.uk or call 01234 845725.