Diane Burleigh tells Jon Robins how the legal services bill could see legal executives launch their own firms


So what does the Clementi revolution and the Legal Services Bill promise legal executives? ‘Further career development,’ responds Diane Burleigh, chief executive of the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX). ‘The key for us is the ability for our members to form partnerships and run businesses with the other lawyers.’



ILEX represents a significant chunk of the legal profession, with some 7,000 qualified lawyer members, plus a further 15,000 trainees. It was established in 1963 with the backing of the Law Society, its previous incarnation being the Managing Clerks Association. Its remit was to recognise the contribution of ‘non-solicitor staff employed in fee-earning work and in the management of firms’.



While the contribution towards fee-earning has never been in doubt, the Legal Services Bill promises to deliver on the second part by allowing a path to law firm management for legal executives. ‘The world is changing and recognising that we shouldn’t be governed by labels but rather by whoever is the right person for the job,’ comments Ms Burleigh, herself a solicitor who used to work at the Law Society. ‘We are aware, as is the Law Society, that there are many firms that would wish to promote their legal executives to partnership level and, in fact, are currently finding ways of doing that without actually calling them partners.’



Ms Burleigh argues that it is ‘hardly satisfactory to have this slightly under-the-table notion’ attached to the careers of non-solicitors. ‘Everything should be open, and enabling [legal executives to become partners] would mean terrific career development opportunities for our members.’



She suggests that such a move would reflect the fact that increasingly there is little difference between legal executives and solicitors. Ms Burleigh continues: ‘Over the last few years, our members have seen career opportunities open up for them, once they have got to fellowship level, from being a commissioner for oaths through to greater advocacy rights. As a result, more and more firms have said, “We don’t care whether you are legal executive or solicitor. If you’re the best for the job, we going to employ you”. Hence an increasing number of our members have found themselves hovering just below partnership level, heading up a team of solicitors or a department.’



Is not the reality that many modern law firms are increasingly reliant on large numbers of second-class lawyers – legal executives and paralegals dealing with volume work for less pay than solicitors? ‘I would hate to say our members would undertake a specific role and do it more cheaply than solicitors. They might, but it depends on how that firm is structured. What we’re finding is increasingly there is a greater gradation, as firms look at the bits of whatever job that need to be done by people with the right competency. But there will be a requirement for a specialist lawyer also, and the legal executive would fit that job very well; elsewhere there might be the requirement for greater breadth which would fit the solicitor model.’



ILEX maintains that its members are well placed to capitalise on the future as envisaged by alternative business structures under the Bill. Ms Burleigh says: ‘Everybody is looking at the legal aid reforms in a mood of doom and gloom, and I understand why. But the ability to form different sorts of businesses offering legal services creates a real potential for such entities to step into the breach. Our members are perfectly used to being employed lawyers and therefore are more in tune with embracing new opportunities than their solicitor counterparts. If you have a supermarket or building society deciding to set up a legal service, our members will be naturally interested because they are used to the employed culture.’



Ms Burleigh says she can well envisage legal executives setting up their own practices once legislation permits. How would these be regulated? ‘ILEX is already a body authorised to grant the right to conduct litigation to our members, and we’re working on a training scheme to enable that to happen, as well as setting up as a frontline regulator. That is how we, in this new world, would regulate our members’ businesses.’



Would ILEX compete with the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the regulation of alternative business structures, as the Bill allows? ‘We have to recognise that the [authority], with all its experience, is going to be, if not the only, then certainly the major regulator of new business and alternative business structures,’ she says. ‘That’s fine, but we are positioning ourselves to be able to regulate businesses where our members would wish us to do so. Our members look to us for leadership.’