A quick tip: If you are already aware of the importance of continued competency and the information, such as the timeframes needed, I'll save you some time (you work at a law firm, I get it!) and advise you to skip to the solution at the bottom.
WHY? SRA Continuing Competence for solicitors and law firms is essential for several reasons:
Stay Current: Law is an ever-evolving field. New laws are enacted, precedents change, and legal interpretations can shift. Continuing Competence helps lawyers stay updated on these changes, ensuring they provide their clients with the most relevant advice.
Professionalism: It ensures that lawyers maintain high standards of professionalism and ethical behaviour. Understanding the latest legal developments and ethical guidelines contributes to a lawyer's credibility and reputation in their field.
Skill Development: Law isn't just about understanding legislation; it's also about negotiation, client service, business acumen, and many other skills. Continuing Competence can help lawyers develop these vital ancillary skills for their practice.
Regulatory Compliance: As stated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), all solicitors, Registered European Lawyers (RELs), and Registered Foreign Lawyers (RFLs) must complete Continuing Competence to ensure they're meeting their professional obligations. Failure to comply with these regulations could lead to disciplinary action.
Client Service: Ultimately, the main aim of Continuing Competence is to ensure that clients receive the best possible service. By continuously improving their knowledge and skills, lawyers can provide high-quality advice and representation to their clients.
WHO?
The SRA Continuing Competence for solicitors and law firms is required by all solicitors who provide legal services to the public in England and Wales to maintain their professional competence through their Continuing Competence scheme. This includes:
Solicitors: Whether they work in private practice, in-house for a company, government, or any other type of organisation.
Registered European Lawyers (RELs): Lawyers from an EU member state registered with the SRA to practice European and domestic law in the UK.
Registered Foreign Lawyers (RFLs): Lawyers outside the European Union registered with the SRA to practice foreign and domestic law in the UK.
This means that professionals are expected to reflect on their practice, identify and address learning and development needs, carry out the necessary learning and development activities, and evaluate their effectiveness each year.
HOW?
Their new approach to Continuing Competence, implemented in 2016, shifted from counting CPD hours to a more individualised approach focused on reflection and self-assessment of learning needs.
Solicitors are expected to:
Reflect on the quality of their practice and identify any learning and development needs.
Plan how to address these needs.
Carry out the necessary learning and development activities.
Evaluate the effectiveness of these activities.
The SRA does not mandate specific courses or providers. Instead, solicitors have the flexibility to decide for themselves how to meet their continuing competence requirements. The learning and development activities they undertake may take various forms, not just traditional training courses.
Solicitors
WHEN?
The SRA requires solicitors to make an annual declaration, as part of their application to renew their practising certificate, that they have reflected on their practice and addressed any identified learning and development needs.
The practice year for solicitors in England and Wales typically runs from 1 November to 31 October of the following year. Solicitors are generally required to renew their practising certificates in October. As part of the renewal process, they must confirm that they have fulfilled their Continuing Competence obligations for the previous year.
This means that solicitors should have completed their learning and development activities and reflected on their effectiveness by the time they apply for their practising certificate renewal. However, the SRA does not mandate specific deadlines for undertaking these activities within the practice year. Solicitors have the flexibility to determine when and how they meet their Continuing Competence requirements.
SOLUTION:
Every individual firm has its own objectives they want to hit. So why would a generic training programme address this? Frankly, it won't.
Valuable time and money are wasted on training with no tangible results. We're not a traditional coaching company. At Lawyerism, our unique and refreshing approach identifies the goals, addresses the needs and simultaneously delivers on individual and firm-wide objectives.
Leadership goals
Firstly we sit down with your leadership team and identify together what realistic goals you need to or even have set for your organisation.
Employee skills
We then use qualitative and quantitative analysis (conversations, interviews and data) to identify exactly what your individuals need up-skilling to enable you to reach those goals.
Value setting
We then reconvene with leadership to present you with the solution.
Anonymised data on your employee needs and critical skill gaps
The value drivers we will coach your individuals and teams, including one-to-one follow-up to ensure implementation
The timeframes and bespoke package
The identified skills and outcomes your employees can use to fill out the Continuing Competence learning and development template created by the SRA
What is the Cost of the above? Nothing
"But that's absolutely crazy!" - Don't worry, I've heard it before...
When I first presented the concept to advisors from law firms who are used to an industry that charges by the hour, they thought I might have lost my mind, and then I explained...
We accept investment only when we can deliver you a bespoke solution to your needs and objectives. We don't believe in blanket solutions to your complex problems.
Why do we do this? Throughout my career, I often say, "I'm not in the business of wasting time" to clients. At Lawyerism, we genuinely believe in transparency and change. One without the other doesn't work. By involving both leadership and employees to identify how we can enable you to reach your goals, we save your employees valuable time by not making them sit through coaching that may only address 20% of their actual needs. We also lower your costs overall with our targeted approach.
So what next?
Let's start a conversation so I can understand more about the value you want to create at your firm and whether we would be a good fit to enable you to get there.
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