Professional Skills Units

Students studying the new Level 3 Certificate and Professional Diploma in Law and Legal Practice are required to complete the two Professional Skills units: Unit 16 Client Care Skills and Unit 17 Legal Research Skills

Students are required to complete a number of tasks as part of their studies towards these two Professional Skills units. These tasks are undertaken over a period of time with the student’s accredited centre (college). The student’s accredited centre determines the time and the way in which these units are delivered to the student. The tasks are then assessed by the student’s accredited centre, and all the work for each student, which must be of a Pass standard, is then forwarded to CILEx for quality assurance checks by an CILEx-appointed moderator. It is imperative that centres only forward work to CILEx that is of a Pass standard. CILEx cannot quality assure work which has not reached a Pass standard.

There are submission windows for student work each year in January and June. Centres must submit student work for quality assurance checks at these points and at no other point during the year.

Students register for the Professional Skills units in the same way as registering for a Law and Practice examination.

When a student registers with CILEx for the Professional Skills units, they register to have work submitted for them by their centre at the next submission window.

The registration and submission process for the Professional Skills assessments (Units 16 and 17)

All students must be registered as student members of CILEx (and have their subscription fees paid up to date) in order to submit their Level 3 Professional Skills assessments to CILEx.

To register to have the Professional Skills assessments submitted to and quality assured by CILEx, students must complete the relevant section of the examination registration form and pay the registration fee.

The deadlines for registering for Professional Skills assessments are the same as the deadlines for registering for the examinations for the Law and Practice units (units 1-15).

When deciding whether to register for a specific submission window, it is important that students and tutors understand that they are registering with CILEx to send all the work in relation to a specific unit to CILEx at a specific time in the year. This work must be of a Pass standard, and any failure to submit the relevant work at the specified submission window cannot be carried over until the next submission window without the student registering and paying to have the work submitted again.

As a consequence, students and tutors must be confident that, at the point at which a student has to register for a Professional Skills assessment submission, they are clearly going to be in a position to submit Pass standard work at the time of the submission window. Where students and tutors are not confident that this will happen by the specified date, they should refrain from registering for that specific submission window.

The Professional Skills registration forms are processed by CILEx and CILEx produces a list for each centre of all students who are registered to submit Professional Skills assessments for a specific submission window.

In January and June, CILEx contacts all centres to request that the Professional Skills assessments, for students who are on the CILEx list and who the centres consider to have passed the Professional Skills assessment/s, are submitted to CILEx.

It is essential that students keep a copy of their Professional Skills assessment/s because CILEx will not return assessments which are submitted to CILEx.

If a student has registered to have their Professional Skills assessment submitted to CILEx, but the centre does not consider that the student has met the criteria for the Pass standard, the work must not be submitted to CILEx and ‘DNS’ (did not submit) will be recorded on the student’s CILEx record.

If a centre considers that a student has met CILEx’s Pass criteria for one of the Professional Skills assessments, but the student is not on the CILEx list, the centre is not permitted to submit the assessment to CILEx and the student must register to have the assessment submitted to CILEx at the next opportunity, usually approximately 6 months later.

IMPORTANT: It is essential that students discuss their Professional Skills assessments with their tutors before deciding whether to register to have their assessment/s submitted for a specific submission window.

CILEx will not refund the Professional Skills registration fee if a student’s Professional Skills assessment is NOT submitted to CILEx by the centre because the centre does not consider it meets the criteria for the Pass standard.