The Government Legal Department has decided to open its external vacancies for lawyers to chartered legal executives, following a review into its recruitment practices.

The first job open to legal executives is a £53,196 position as a litigation and advisory lawyer at HM Revenue & Customs, at a grade-seven rank.

Chartered legal executives need a qualifying law degree or a graduate diploma in law to apply, or they must have achieved over 50% in all their Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) level-six exams.

The job also specifies that solicitors, barristers or legal executives applying to the job should have a 2:1 degree, or an average score of 65% on their CILEx exams, and two years’ post-qualified experience.

The president of CILEx, Frances Edwards (pictured), praised the department for adapting ‘to reflect the modern ways that lawyers are educated’.

‘There are still some organisations who overlook the full spectrum of lawyers they can recruit, depriving them of practically trained specialist lawyers,’ she said. 

The proposal to open up roles to chartered legal executives was made by CILEx and approved by the head of the Government Legal Department (formerly legal service) and Treasury solicitor Jonathan Jones.