'Walls of Jericho have fallen': New CILEx president enters with a bang, and a message

The new president of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) has rejected the notion of 'fat-cat' lawyers, instead calling legal professionals 'foot soldiers.'

David Edwards, pictured, became the 52nd president of CILEx last week at Hatfield House, where he used biblical imagery to illustrate a change in the legal times.

'The trumpets have sounded and the walls of Jericho in the legal profession have fallen,' he said.

'We have our own practice rights and can regulate our own practices. With an increasingly specialised legal sector we will undoubtedly be a significant part of the future profession.

'We are not the fat-cats, we are the foot soldiers', he added.

Edwards, a local government lawyer at St Albans City and District Council, takes the helm of the CILEx office just as legal executives become able to set up their own law firms to deliver reserved legal activities, a power granted by parliament earlier this year.

Edwards also praised newly appointed Michael Gove for speaking 'candidly' about the difficulties faced by the 'less well-off' trying to navigate the justice system.

'I will be seizing on the glimmer of hope that this gives us,' he said, 'and I am determined to work with him to make a better justice system.'

Edwards also hopes to collaborate with the business secretary, Sajid Javid, 'because access to justice is reliant on access to education'.

The paralegals, lawyers, advocates, and judges of the future all require legal education, he said, of which vocational learning is a necessary part of the mix.

He continued: 'Indeed it is now all the more important, following the ending of student maintenance grants in Wednesday's Budget. The poorest young people thinking about university study will have to borrow twice as much now to cover both fees and maintenance. This will place a further debt burden on the poorest students, and only makes the CILEx route into law - the affordable route, the accessible route - more necessary than ever.'

The leadership team is completed by Martin Callan, the vice president, and Millicent Grant, the deputy vice president. Edwards takes over from the now immediate past president, Frances Edwards.

Laura Clenshaw is managing editor of Solicitors Journal

@L_Clenshaw