Coroners in England and Wales are appointed by local government, and those who are qualified to apply for appointment are barristers, solicitors or legally qualified doctors of five years' standing. In addition to the coroners who serve a local community, all High Court judges are automatically made coroners for the whole of the country.
The job of the coroner is to inquire into deaths occurring within the area in which he or she serves, where the deceased is known to have died violently, unnaturally, in prison or unexpectedly, or where the cause of death is unknown. A coroner can order a post mortem examination and, where necessary, an inquest. Inquests are held in the coroner's court, which considers the evidence concerning the cause of death.
In Scotland the job of the coroner is undertaken by Procurators Fiscal. In Northern Ireland coroners must be practicing barristers or solicitors of not less than five years' standing.
Licensed Conveyancers
The profession of licensed conveyancers was created in England and Wales as recently as 11 May 1987. Licensed conveyancers are men and women who are legally qualified to advise on all aspects of the transfer of rights to land and property. A degree is not required; every would-be licensed conveyancer applies for registration as a student with the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. The basic educational requirement is four GCSEs or equivalent including English, but mature students may be accepted on the basis of their experience alone.
Having registered, a student must pass the Council's examinations and fulfill a practical training requirement. Part I of the examination is of A level standard. Part II deals with areas of law, practice and accounting which are relevant to conveyancing. Exams are held twice a year. Most students attend part-time courses run at colleges throughout the country. Correspondence courses are also available.
Legal Executives and Paralegals
Solicitors throughout the UK have traditionally employed non-admitted personnel to assist them with their legal work. Today most firms in England and Wales employ non-admitted staff - often described as 'paralegals', a rather vague and ill-defined general term sometimes associated with former office secretaries who have developed a wider range of legal skills - to help with legal work. Estimates vary, but at present there are thought to be over 25,000 fee-earning paralegals (and possibly many more than that) working in private practice. The Institute of Paralegal Training, which incorporates the Association of Legal Secretaries, provides information on career possibilities for secretaries. In Northern Ireland non-qualified legal assistants are called law clerks, but their numbers are steadily dwindling and work which was traditionally undertaken by law clerks in Northern Ireland is now more often undertaken by trainees and qualified assistant solicitors, and in Scotland the pattern is similar.
In all three jurisdictions it is possible to join a solicitors' firm straight from school without any specific qualifications and start work as a clerk, learning the job from experience and informal tuition given in the course of employment by the solicitor employer. However, the Institute of Legal Executives was set up in England and Wales with the support of the Law Society in 1963, and this provides a recognized system of formal training and exams for such employment. The Institute also attempts to protect the status and interests of its members while improving the quality of recruits.
As a school-leaver starting work in chambers you will find you are expected to fill in where needed, however mundane the tasks. It should be stressed that the profession of clerk, like that of barrister, although once an exclusively male domain, has become open to women and there are both senior and junior female clerks.
Strictly speaking, the ride 'legal executive' should only be applied to Fellows of the Institute (the Law Society only permits Fellows to be referred to as 'legal executives' in solicitors' publicity material and on their letter heading), but the expression has come to be used much more generally in colloquial usage. If you are keen on a legal career but do not feel you can undertake the solicitors' training, this alternative may well suit you. Once you are qualified as a legal executive, it is always open to you to take advantage of the exemptions given by the Law Society and go on to become a solicitor.
Once you have qualified as a Member, provided you are aged 25 or over and have completed five years in qualifying employment, including two consecutive years as a qualified Member, it is possible to apply for admission as a Fellow. Applications for enrolment as a Fellow have to be supported by a certificate of fitness signed by a partner or senior solicitor of the practice or department in which the applicant is employed.
Whether a Fellow of the Institute or otherwise, there will always be a limit on what you can do independently. You will not have such an extensive right to represent clients in court as solicitors have, and you will not be able to set up in practice on your own, or become a partner in a firm.
With the increase in the number of solicitors qualifying, some firms may tend to employ young solicitors rather than legal executives or paralegals. However, many firms in England and Wales prefer to employ non-solicitors for certain types of work, since the fact that they tend to specialize means they develop a very useful in-depth knowledge of their own area of the law. In addition, firms may realistically expect that paralegals will be cheaper to employ and will stay longer in one job as there is not the pressure on them to move to find partnership prospects.
Although as a legal executive or paralegal you will always be working for a solicitor, more experienced clerks work with a minimum of supervision, and handle their own cases. They sometimes manage their own departments, and they have contact with clients in just the same way as solicitors do. Obviously, those who qualify as Fellows of the Institute are likely to hold more senior positions and have much less need of supervision.
