Teesside lawyer achieves pioneering CILEX qualification

A Teesside lawyer is among the first in the country to qualify through a new route, gaining full advocacy rights as a CILEX Chartered Legal Executive Litigator and Advocate in civil litigation – all without completing a traditional law degree.

Charlotte Barugh, of Jacksons, which has offices in Teesside and Newcastle, is now listed on the CILEX Authorised Practitioners Directory, allowing her to practice with equivalence to a solicitor in her specialist area.

Charlotte joined Jacksons as a legal secretary in 2020 and has spent six years working towards the qualification. 

She completed her CILEX Level 3 Diploma in Law and Practice in 2021 and became a qualified legal executive in June 2023, having progressed from trainee legal executive in the dispute resolution and debt recovery department.

She says the CILEX route was a “better route” for her and is now encouraging other school pupils in the region to consider this alternative path into the profession.

Charlotte said: “I joined Jacksons as a legal secretary and wanted to develop my knowledge and qualify to become a lawyer.

“I had already started my CILEX qualifications when I joined Jacksons and the firm offered me a good development plan for my career and paid for me to continue undertaking the qualification whilst I also learned on the job.

“I really wanted to be a lawyer when I was younger, but when I was 16, I decided not to go to college because I wanted a full-time job. 

“I then realised there were alternative routes to becoming a lawyer that didn’t involve going to university for five or six years and taking on lots of student debt.

“Jacksons gave me the opportunity to develop my career at the same time as studying and learning.

“I’m the first person at Jacksons to have qualified through this new route and I have told multiple people about it.

“Through Jacksons’ connection with the High Tide Foundation, I have visited schools to talk about alternative routes to becoming a lawyer when you turn 16.

“I think it’s important to show people there are alternative ways to develop in your career as I don’t believe the alternative routes are well known.

“I am also grateful for the support that Jacksons have provided throughout my learning.”

Charlotte was supported throughout by Peter Rowlands, legal skills manager at Innersummit Professional Services, who delivers the CILEX qualifications from Bede Sixth Form College, in Billingham. 

Peter added: “Charlotte was amongst my first cohort of students to achieve this professional standard and become qualified through this route.

“She was extremely hardworking and very resilient, demonstrating the really high quality of a dedicated student throughout the whole of her academic project.

“Nothing was too tough for her and if she was unsure about something, she did her own research and came back with her own answers.”

Peter added it is “great” working directly with law firms and their trainee lawyers, as trainees talk about their own practice and this helps the college and tutors to broaden their knowledge too.

“We learn from them as much as they learn from us,” he said.

“When we learn about how a firm operates in practice, we can build that into our delivery.

“When we were talking about client care, I would ask the students to talk about their own experiences within the workplace and how they communicate with clients, so it’s always great working with firms and finding out what firms want and don’t want.

“In this way, our courses become truly employer-focused and employer-led, which is part of the ethos of our department.”

Toby Joel, equity partner who heads up Jacksons’ dispute resolution team, added he was delighted to see Charlotte’s “hard work and determination rewarded with achieving this qualification”.

He said: “As a firm, we enjoy seeing our trainees qualifying as practising lawyers – something which is very rewarding when you have worked with them from the start of their careers.

“I too took the same route and joined the firm straight from school, working my way up through training and qualification offered to me.

“Charlotte has worked very hard to achieve this qualification, which has been pleasing to see.

“At Jacksons, we embrace new routes to becoming a lawyer as this makes the process much more inclusive and enables us to attract good employees from a broader pool of talented people, whether they are working as apprentices or, like Charlotte, coming through with a new type of qualification.”

He added the firm was looking forward to “continuing our relationship with Bede Sixth Form College and the other further and higher education establishments across the region” as educational routes into the legal profession evolve.

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