Lexcel

Last updated

Lexcel is an accreditation indicating quality in relation to legal practice management standards. It was introduced by The Law Society of England and Wales in 1998. Until 2010, the Lexcel standard was attainable by law firms and in-house legal departments in England and Wales. A separate franchised scheme was available for practices in Northern Ireland. Since September 2010, Lexcel accreditation has been attainable by any law firm or in-house legal department in any jurisdiction in the world. The worldwide scheme continues to be administered by the Law Society of England and Wales.

Contents

Benefits from accreditation

The Law Society of England and Wales have carried out research and received feedback from practices which indicate that the benefits of achieving Lexcel accreditation are:

Sections of the Lexcel standard

Version 5 of the standard, published in 2011, is still broken down into eight areas of practice; Structure and Policies, Strategic Plans, Financial Management, Information Management, People Management, Risk Management, Client Care and File and Case Management. Compliance with the standard is ascertained by independent assessment.

The focus of Lexcel has, over time, moved slightly more towards the management of risk. For example, v5 of the standard no longer requires a quality policy (mandatory in ISO9001:2008) but does require policies covering outsourcing, use of social media and conflicts of interest, and procedures covering financial crime.

A number of Lexcel requirements simply reiterate the requirements of regulators, such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). All solicitors in England & Wales must meet these regulatory requirements, not just those with Lexcel. For example, the Lexcel requirement 1.4 for a "policy on the avoidance of discrimination" is very similar to the Indicative Behaviours (IB2.1-2.5) in the SRA Handbook 2011.

Accreditation process

Before requesting an independent assessment, a practice or legal department should ascertain how closely aligned to the standard it is. This can be undertaken by completing The Law Society's Self-Assessment Checklist - see 'External Links' below. For organisations requiring consultancy assistance to achieve compliance, they are open to seek assistance from a Law Society accredited consultant. See 'External Links' below for a list.

A practice or legal department wishing to arrange an assessment against the Lexcel Standard will have to do two things. Firstly, select one of The Law Society's licensed assessment bodies to carry out the assessment. They should be contacted to agree the duration of the assessment and the fee payable. See 'External Links' below - for a list of assessment bodies. The assessment body will be able to answer any questions relating to the assessment process and guide the organisation through it. Secondly, the organisation will need to make an application for an assessment directly with The Law Society. This is done by completing the application form - see 'External Links' below. The Law Society charge practices an annual registration fee which varies from £60.00 to £865.00 depending on the size of the practice. Organisations must include with their application:

Outcome of assessment

If an organisation is correctly aligned with the Standard, the assessment report will be sent to The Law Society and the standard awarded. If an organisation's policies, plans, procedures and processes are not correctly aligned with the Lexcel standard, the assessor will note minor or major 'non-compliances'. Where an organisation is being assessed for the first time, they have up to six months to correct the non-compliances and on completion of any necessary work, will then be awarded the Lexcel Standard. Subsequent assessments will result in minor non-compliances having to be corrected within three weeks and major non-compliances within three months. Award of the standard lasts three years subject to satisfactory annual maintenance visits (AMVs). At the end of the three-year award, if the organisation wishes to continue with Lexcel, a full re-assessment is again undertaken.

Related Research Articles

Security management is the identification of an organization's assets, followed by the development, documentation, and implementation of policies and procedures for protecting these assets.

A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to practise there as such. For example, in England and Wales a solicitor is admitted to practise under the provisions of the Solicitors Act 1974. With some exceptions, practising solicitors must possess a practising certificate. There are many more solicitors than barristers in England; they undertake the general aspects of giving legal advice and conducting legal proceedings.

In business and accounting, information technology controls are specific activities performed by persons or systems designed to ensure that business objectives are met. They are a subset of an enterprise's internal control. IT control objectives relate to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and the overall management of the IT function of the business enterprise. IT controls are often described in two categories: IT general controls (ITGC) and IT application controls. ITGC include controls over the Information Technology (IT) environment, computer operations, access to programs and data, program development and program changes. IT application controls refer to transaction processing controls, sometimes called "input-processing-output" controls. Information technology controls have been given increased prominence in corporations listed in the United States by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The COBIT Framework is a widely used framework promulgated by the IT Governance Institute, which defines a variety of ITGC and application control objectives and recommended evaluation approaches. IT departments in organizations are often led by a Chief Information Officer (CIO), who is responsible for ensuring effective information technology controls are utilized.

Law Society of Scotland organization

The Law Society of Scotland is the professional governing body for Scottish solicitors. It promotes excellence among solicitors through the support and regulation of its members. It also promotes the interests of the public in relation to the profession. The Society helps to shape the law for the benefit of both the public and the profession.

A registered training organisation (RTO), in Australia, is an organisation providing Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses to students, resulting in qualifications or statements of attainment that are recognised and accepted by industry and other educational institutions throughout Australia.

The Legal Practice Course (LPC) – also known as the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice – is a postgraduate course and is the final vocational stage for becoming a solicitor in England and Wales. The course is designed to provide a bridge between academic study and training in a law firm. It is a one-year, full-time course, and tuition fees range from £8,000-£16,200 a year. A small proportion of students may have their fees and some living expenses paid for by future employers under a training contract.

Legal education in the United Kingdom is divided between the common law system of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and that of Scotland, which uses a hybrid of common law and civil law.

Governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) is the term covering an organization's approach across these three practices: Governance, risk management, and compliance. The first scholarly research on GRC was published in 2007 where GRC was formally defined as "the integrated collection of capabilities that enable an organization to reliably achieve objectives, address uncertainty and act with integrity." The research referred to common "keep the company on track" activities conducted in departments such as internal audit, compliance, risk, legal, finance, IT, HR as well as the lines of business, executive suite and the board itself.

Security controls are safeguards or countermeasures to avoid, detect, counteract, or minimize security risks to physical property, information, computer systems, or other assets.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales.

An environmental audit is a type of evaluation intended to identify environmental compliance and management system implementation gaps, along with related corrective actions. In this way they perform an analogous (similar) function to financial audits. There are generally two different types of environmental audits: compliance audits and management systems audits. Compliance audits tend to be the primary type in the US or within US-based multinationals.

Law practice management software is software designed to manage a law firm's case and client records, billing and bookkeeping, schedules and appointments, deadlines, computer files and to facilitate any compliance requirements such as with document retention policies, courts' electronic filing systems and, in the UK, the Solicitors' Accounts Rules as defined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

ISO 28000:2007 is an ISO standard published by International Organization for Standardization which includes requirements of a security management system particularly dealing with security assurance in the supply chain. The standard was developed by ISO/TC 8 on "Ships and maritime technology" and published in 2007. In 2015 the responsibility for the ISO 28000 series was transferred to ISO/TC 292 on "Security and resilience", who in 2019 decided to start a revision which is expected to take 3 years. A justification study for the revision has been accepted by ISO TMB.

A Legal Cashier is a specialized type of bookkeeper for law firms responsible for the accounting and finance functions of a solicitor's practice such as recording day-to-day financial transactions and ensuring compliance with the Solicitors' Accounts Rules. The term "Legal Cashier" is in common use within the legal profession in England and Wales,

Environmental certification is a form of environmental regulation and development where a company can voluntarily choose to comply with predefined processes or objectives set forth by the certification service. Most certification services have a logo which can be applied to products certified under their standards. This is seen as a form of corporate social responsibility allowing companies to address their obligation to minimise the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.

ISO/IEC 27001 is an information security standard, part of the ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards, of which the last version was published in 2013, with a few minor updates since then. It is published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) under the joint ISO and IEC subcommittee, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27.

Nwabueze Jaja Wachuku Nwokolo, a royal princess of Ngwaland, is a Nigerian United Kingdom based lawyer who is a director and board chair of Great Britain's Black Solicitors Network: BSN, the largest membership organisation of its kind in Europe; as well as being a member of the Law Society of England and Wales' Minority Ethnic Concerns Group. She also sits on the RAB: Regulatory Affairs Board of the Law Society.

Asons Solicitors, a subsidiary of the Asons Group, was a British law firm based in the town of Bolton, Greater Manchester, in the North West of England, approximately 15 miles (24 km) north-west of Manchester.

In the field of law, a sole practitioner or solo practitioner is a lawyer who practices independently, in a law firm that may include non-lawyer support personnel but does not include any other lawyers.

To be given the title "accredited specialist" is the highest accreditation attainable as a solicitor in Australia. To become an accredited specialist, a solicitor must meet certain requirements and go through various exam stages, testing their Skills and knowledge in the specific area of the law that they are competent in. Once a solicitor fulfils the requirements, they are entitled to use the prestigious title of accredited specialist after their name to differentiate themselves as experts in that area of law.

References