Update: Registered Paralegal Scheme

The Registered Paralegal Scheme, the product of a collaboration between the Society and the Scottish Paralegal Association, will be two years old this August.

The scheme, which essentially concerns the quality assurance of non-regulated staff, offers paralegals a better career structure, helps development within their role and creates a defined professional status for the first time. It offers their employing solicitors comfort from the knowledge that their paralegals meet the high standards prescribed by the scheme, which in turn builds client confidence.

Anyone can give themselves the badge of paralegal, irrespective of whether they have qualifications or experience, but only those who have applied to the Society, and can demonstrate that they meet the necessary standards, may call themselves a Law Society of Scotland Registered Paralegal.

Already there are eight legal domains, or practice areas, to which paralegals can register – Civil Litigation: Debt Recovery, Civil Litigation: Reparation Law, Criminal Litigation, Commercial Conveyancing, Domestic Conveyancing, Family Law, Liquor Licensing, and Wills and Executries. News on the creation of a number of other new domains will follow in the coming months.

If you employ paralegals who you think would benefit from the scheme, or who work in a legal domain not yet within the scheme, please contact Denise Robertson at the Society (deniserobertson@lawscot.org.uk).