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QLTT experience requirement

Applications made under regulations 5, 9 and 10 of the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Regulations

If you want to qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales, you first need to have some experience of working within the law as it is practised in England and Wales. This will help you gain an insight into how the legal profession works and how law is practised in England and Wales. It will also give your future clients and potential employers and colleagues confidence in your ability to work as a solicitor.

If you are applying under regulations 5, 9 and 10 of the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Regulations (QLTR), you will need to show before you can be admitted that you have the following experience.

  • At least two years' experience of working in legal practice in a common law jurisdiction: This must have been gained either after you qualified in your home jurisdiction and/or as part of the regulated qualification scheme that you had to complete in order to qualify there,

    of which

    at least one year must have been gained by practising the law of England and Wales. The experience must have been gained either in a firm or other organisation regulated by the SRA or under the direct supervision of a solicitor who had been admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales. If your experience was not gained working in a firm or other organisation regulated by the SRA, the solicitor who supervised you must have held a current practising certificate for England and Wales when they were supervising you and have previously held at least four such practising certificates,

    and

  • Experience of three distinct areas of law and experience of both contentious and non contentious practice: The length and nature of this experience must have been sufficient to give you a reasonable insight into the practice of law in those areas. You may have gained this experience either in England or Wales or in another common law jurisdiction

The following information will help you understand what you will need to do show that you have met the experience requirement.

  • You do not need to work in England and Wales in order to gain experience of working within the law of England and Wales. However, you will need to show that you have experience of the regulatory and professional rules and codes that operate in England and Wales, such as the frameworks for financial and property transactions and the Solicitors' Code of Conduct published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

If there is any doubt about the nature of your exposure to English/Welsh legal practice, it will be for you to demonstrate by way of examples how your familiarity with legal practice in the jurisdiction has developed.

  • Your two years' experience of working in a common law jurisdiction can include your one year practising within the law of England and Wales. However, additional experience in a common law jurisdiction other than England and Wales will not reduce the experience of practising the law of England and Wales that you will need to have.
  • The three distinct areas of law may be undertaken in either, or a combination of, the law of England and Wales or another common law jurisdiction. The following shows the types of areas of practice in which your experience might be gained, but other areas of law will also be considered:

    Banking

    Civil Litigation

    Commercial law

    Company law

    Construction

    Consumer law

    Criminal Litigation

    Employment

    Environmental law

    EU law

    Family

    Housing

    Immigration

    Insolvency

    Insurance

    Intellectual property

    Local government

    Magisterial

    Personal injury

    Planning

    Professional negligence

    Property

    Shipping & aviation

    Tax and financial planning

    Trusts

    Welfare

    Wills and probate

There is no set period during which each of your areas of law must have been gained. However, if you have less than three months' experience of working in an area, you will need to satisfy the SRA that you have reasonable insight into the law in that area and how it is practised.

  • Your experience does not need to have been gained while you were in paid work. Appropriate voluntary work, properly supervised, may contribute to your experience requirement.
  • If you have worked part time, the total period of time over which you will need to have gained the experience will need to be longer.
  • You can apply under the QLTR before you have gained all of your experience. This will allow you to apply for a certificate of eligibility so that you can sit any papers of the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (QLTT) that you need to pass. You will not be admitted as a solicitor until you have shown that you have met the experience requirement.
  • You will need to have experience of both transactional/advisory work and dispute resolution to satisfy the contentious/non-contentious requirement. If you have difficulty gaining sufficient experience of either contentious or non-contentious work, you could consider supplementing your day-to-day experience with pro bono (voluntary) work. Some organisations offer courses, coupled with pro bono opportunities, to help individuals satisfy the requirement to gain contentious experience. You should note that it is not sufficient to complete a course alone. You also need experience of real cases. When considering whether your experience was adequate, we will use the standards that must be met by trainee solicitors, who must show that either they directly undertaken or they have observed others
    • taking instructions,
    • identifying the client's purpose and advising on the possible outcomes and costs,
    • researching the parties' liabilities,
    • gathering evidence from witnesses or elsewhere,
    • considering all the options for resolving a dispute,
    • meeting deadlines and keeping clients informed of progress,
    • drafting or preparing papers to assist in resolving a contentious matter,
    • controlling information central to the dispute throughout the proceeding,
    • representing the client and the client's interests through meetings, conferences and hearings, and
    • ensuring that settlements and judgments are secure and enforceable.
  • If your experience was not gained while you were working in a firm or practice regulated by the SRA, you will need to show that you were supervised on a day-to-day basis by a solicitor working in close contact with you. In other words, you should be supervised by someone you see in person at least every week.
  • Please note that if we are unable to assess your work experience in the office because it does not fulfil our criteria, it may be sent to an adjudicator for consideration. This may delay the issue of your Certificate of Eligibility.

Evidence requirements

To show that you have met the experience requirements, you will need to provide the following:

  • The name and address of all firms or other legal practices in which you have worked and the exact dates during which you worked
  • If your experience was not gained in a firm or practice regulated by the SRA, the full name of the solicitor(s) qualified in England and Wales who supervised your experience of working in the law of England and Wales, together with the dates of each supervising solicitor's admission in England and Wales and of the issue of each of their five practising certificates
  • A detailed description of the range of work you undertook during the two years (or equivalent) experience on which you are relying to support your application. You will need to set out how and when your experience of working within the law of England and Wales was gained.
  • Letters or statements from the solicitor(s) qualified in England and Wales who supervised your work or from a senior member of the firm or practice in which you gained your experience confirming the periods of supervision and the nature of the work you undertook
  • If necessary, statements from other lawyers who are in a position to confirm any remaining legal practice experience on which you are relying to support your application, including any period of self-employment
  • Please note that where your supervisor no longer works at the firm in which your experience was gained, in addition to the Work Experience Evidence Form, you will need to provide the following:
    • A covering letter from the supervisor’s current place of employment on letter headed paper.
    • A letter from the firm where your experience was gained confirming your employment dates.

If you are applying for a certificate of eligibility before you have met the experience requirement, you must provide evidence of your experience to date. You will not have the opportunity to submit further evidence of your work experience again until you apply for admission. We will tell you on your certificate of eligibility what further experience you will need to gain before you could qualify as a solicitor.