Your responsibilities as a QWE employer
As an employer who has taken on new staff, or committed to supporting existing staff, who are following the SQE route to solicitor qualification, you need to be clear what your responsibilities are to those staff. In this article, we outline what good practice looks like for employers offering qualifying work experience to future solicitors via this route.
Supporting those in QWE roles
Know your responsibilities
Employers can provide QWE regardless of whether they are SRA-regulated or not, providing the work involves provision of legal services and enables development of some or all of the SRA solicitor competencies. The role can be temporary or permanent, paid or unpaid, full time or part time, and does not need to be a minimum or maximum length. When creating, and recruiting someone into, such a role, here’s what employers need to consider.
Create the right employment type for your organisation
First and foremost, ensure the role meets your business needs in terms of duration and contract e.g. fixed term or full time, part time or full time.
Focus on the unique nature of your business
You don't need to provide access to different seats or areas of law that are not relevant to your business – but advertise this clearly and highlight the value to those seeking to qualify in niche areas of law.
Include duties that involve provision of real legal services
Ensure the role responsibilities and duties allow the person in the role to provide real (not simulated) legal services to individuals as per the Legal Services Act 2007 (S.12) definition, rather than purely administrative tasks.
Map duties to a broad range of competencies
Ensure the duties of the role give the role holder the opportunity to develop at least two, and ideally far more, SRA competencies. Examples of competencies include obtaining relevant facts (B1), developing and advising on relevant options, strategies and solutions (B3), establishing and maintaining effective and professional relations with other people (C3) and keeping, using and maintaining accurate, complete and clear records (D2). For a full list of competencies, see links to further resources below.
Manage expectations around career progression
Manage expectations right from the outset, including at interview and offer stage. Be clear to those being employed in e.g. a permanent paralegal role and wanting to use the role as QWE how your organisation will support them with their career progression. Once they qualify as a solicitor, outline whether your organisation would be willing or able to offer them the opportunity to become a qualified solicitor in your organisation or not. You are not obliged to employ a paralegal or trainee in your organisation as a solicitor once they become qualified, if you do not want or need to do so for your business needs.
Ensure effective supervision and development
Provide adequate supervision and effective feedback to help your staff develop their legal skills and knowledge in support of developing the required competencies. This can be done informally on a regular basis with a formal appraisal or performance review conducted at the end of a shorter fixed term role, or every year if employing someone in a two-year training contract-style role. Consider what you can provide in terms of additional training and how you can support their learning needs.
Clarify who will confirm QWE
Ensure you have discussed with the role holder how their QWE can be confirmed (signed off for SRA purposes). This should be done by someone eligible and available in the organisation to confirm the qualifying work experience. This could be a SRA-regulated solicitor (practising or non-practising) supervising the role holder, or a solicitor or CoLP in the wider team. If there is no-one eligible in your organisation to confirm QWE (albeit unlikely), you should discuss with the staff member how they will need to arrange for an external solicitor to confirm the QWE, following discussions with the role holder's workplace supervisor.
Put in place good QWE record-keeping
Review and improve, as needed, record-keeping processes to support QWE confirming. Ensure your organisation keeps sufficiently detailed and accurate HR records of employees work dates, duties and responsibilities, appraisal and training records and disciplinary issues to support retrospective QWE confirming. Maintain records in line with professional body recommendations and GDPR regulations. The onus is on the QWE role holder to keep a record of the legal work they have been carrying out and competences they have developed, but good recording keeping will support employer checks, particularly where supervisors have left the organisation.
Agree to confirm QWE as standard
There are very few justifications for refusing to confirm someone's QWE if they have worked for you providing real life legal services, had the opportunity to develop at least two SRA competencies in their role and there is someone eligible to confirm their QWE in the organisation. Where accurate records exist for someone who has left the organisation but wants to retrospectively use their role as QWE, confirming their QWE should be agreed.
What does confirming someone's QWE mean?
An eligible solicitor or CoLP is not being asked to confirm someone's competence as a solicitor, nor the quality of their work, nor their suitability to practise as a qualified solicitor by confirming QWE. The SRA makes those judgements through the SQE assessments and character and suitability checks.
A confirming solicitor or CoLP is confirming:
- the start and end dates of the QWE role
- the role details are accurate and the role involved provision of legal services
- the role gave the employee the opportunity to develop at least two of the SRA competences
- there were no character and suitability issues which arose during the employee's time in the role (or if there were, that the confirming solicitor provides details of these at the time the staff member submits their QWE record to the SRA online).
Further resources
If you are considering recruiting to a two-year trainee solicitor role and have not done so before, read our article highlighting the differences between Training Contracts offered to LPC-route candidates and those following the SQE route to qualification.
The SRA has excellent resources available about how QWE confirming works, what employers should consider and when it is and is not appropriate to refuse to confirm someone’s QWE. SRA guidance on effective supervision, including of trainees, is also referenced. Examples available from the SRA website are mentioned below: