From the Chief Executive
The
Future's Bright
Fresh from
the launches of the Cornwall and Devon branches, Diane
Burleigh looks ahead to 2010 and a year of significant
progress for Legal Executives.
I have just returned
from the southwest of the country. After a perfect, clear, warm
Cornish day, my husband and I were in Falmouth for the launch of a
new branch of ILEX for our members in Cornwall. The new chairman
and committee had organised a dinner dance to bring members, their
families and their employers together. A raffle raised funds for
charity. Three members of ILEX experienced a brief but clearl
meaningful graduation ceremony.
It was then onto Exeter in Devon for
the launch of a new branch for our Devon members. This was an
afternoon affair, hosted at the offices of a large firm of
solicitors who are also champions of legal executives and the ILEX
professional training. The Lord Mayor of Exeter attended, along
with representatives of a number of firms across Devon, many
members and college representatives.
On the way home I found myself reflecting on the fun that I had
had at these two events. They were fun because the enthusiasm of
our members who had organised them spilled over and infected all of
us. Their enthusiasm, their laughter, their great sense of fun was
clearly not limited to an afternoon or an evening but is an
approach I have no doubt that they take to their work.
It is, in fact, something that I find with so many of our
members. I simply do not come across many of you who are ‘old
cynics’. You all seem to be so committedto your clients, and to
doing a very good job for them, just knuckling down, doing the best
job possible, and getting the satisfaction of a good job well done
and making people, yes, happy. What a gift you all have. Long
may it remain.
Better Support
This is the first Legal Executive Journal of 2010. There is much
to achieve in 2010. Our applications for litigation and probate
rights, together with the rights of audience application for our
associate prosecutors, will come to fruition in 2010. It is now
almost certain that those applications will receive their final
consideration not by the legal services consultative panel of the
Ministry of Justice, but by the Legal Services Board.
Once the applications are confirmed,
the Crown Prosecution Service can move ahead with appropriate
training for our associate prosecutors in accordance with the
scheme we have put forward with them; and we will be inviting
tenders to provide training in relation to our other two schemes. I
hope the take-up will be excellent.
There will continue to be a heavy
focus on working with ILEX Professional Standards Limited to
complete the transformation we are in the middle of to meet the
requirements of the Legal Services Act and the approval of the
Legal Services Board to our governance arrangements. All of this
work needs to be completed really by the end of March 2010.
We will be developing ways to give
better support to our branches to enable them to better carry out
their roles as the local face of ILEX, representing not just the
ILEX organisation, but the membership. Quite a lot of interesting
ideas came out of the branch chairman’s seminar at the end of 2009
and we will be taking all of these forward in 2010.
We will continue with our current
strategy in relation to raising your profile and the profile of
ILEX with the general public.We have in 2009, for a very modest PR
spend, reached over 110 million people through articles in
newspapers asdiverse as The Independent and The
Sun, and magazines as diverse as Bella and Rugby
Today.
We will continue our support for
members seeking, and indeed achieving, partnership; and who see
judicial appointment as a new career opportunity. Perhaps 2010 will
give us our first legal executive judge!
Election uncertainty
This will indeed be an interesting
year.We are still in recession and it is unclear whether we are in
for a second ‘hit’ at some stage during the year. We have, as an
organisation, weathered the current storm very well. Our sadness is
that some of the members have lost their positions and are finding
it difficult to get back into work at the moment.
We will also have a general election.
Whoever will be in power afterwards will be taking steps to cut
public expenditure. I do not know what knock-on effect that will
have on jobs, on funds for training, or on employers’ attitudes to
training and qualification.We will be pro-active on your behalf to
limit any adverse impact on our sector and your jobs. We will be
pro-active on your behalf to limit any adverse impact on our sector
and your jobs.
But I remain confident for your
futures. In spite of taking a bit of a buffeting from external
forces, I have no doubt that if we remain true to our motto of
‘Progress through knowledge’, and continue to offer access to the
legal profession to all through a robust qualification and an
emphasis on good professional conduct, focused at all times on high
professional standards and always delivering on what we promise, we
and our members will see our way through 2010 as successfully as we
have 2009.
I wish you all a very happy,
successful and peaceful New Year.
Reproduced from the January 2010
issue of
the
'Legal Executive'.