How to approach the new competence standard for solicitors in England and Wales - a slide presentation from Gill Steel

1. How to approach the new competence
standard for solicitors

2. This presentation is designed to explain how to reduce the risk of a regulatory
failure by you.
If your competence to practice is called into question, perhaps through a client
complaint, you must be able to demonstrate to the SRA that you have taken
appropriate steps to ensure your ongoing competence.
Failure to be able to show the regulator that you have competence to practice,
in accordance with Principle 5 of the SRA’s Handbook; and failure to
demonstrate that you have reflected on the quality of your practice, may be an
aggravating factor in any action the SRA takes.

3. Reflect
Plan
ChooseRecord
Evaluate
Start
here

4. Reflection

5. Reflection
Reflection is at the heart of the new
approach to continuous professional
development (CPD) for solicitors.
In order to ensure that you are
competent (see SRA Competence
Statement
www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/competence
-statement.page ) you need to reflect
on what skills and knowledge you
need to remain competent and
whether there are behavoural tweaks
which, if addressed, will ensure you
provide
even better service to your clients and
stakeholders within your practice. A good
place to start is with your job role
description if you have one – consider:
what does your firm expect of you?
If you do not have such a role guide then
look at the SRA Competence Statement
and apply it to your particular practice area
and current level of experience.
You have to meet level 3 as a minimum to
be a competent solicitor on qualification –
consider: do I meet this basic standard?
Think about your work experience
over the past few months and be
honest about whether you could have
delivered things better for your clients
or the practice?
Where you identify shortcomings –
reflect on whether these might be
skill deficiencies (such as poor
drafting); or knowledge gaps (such as
technical changes in the law); or
behavioural issues (such as failing to
arrive on time for meetings).

6. ReflectionThere are lots of other sources you could use to help you honestly
uncover your strengths and weaknesses:
• Discuss with your line manager or colleague or even a client or two
• Look at your firm’s appraisal reviews
• Read File Review reports undertaken on your work
• Seek client feedback on your matters
• Test yourself against developments in the law, regulation and
practice
Reflection does not just happen once but should be part of an on-
going cycle. You reflect on the experiences you have had and seek
further information you need to progress.
Capturing your thoughts about what you have learnt and how from
your choices of learning and development opportunities and
applying it to your work in the future is a way of putting you the
learner at the centre of your learning. It makes you responsible for
developing your knowledge rather than having a teacher show you
what you need to know.
If every time you are involved in a learning or development activity
you write down how you might approach your work differently as a
result it starts to embed what you have learnt and sparks new ideas
for future innovation.
The future

7. Plan

8. Plan
What gets measured gets done! In
order to build on your strengths and
address your weaknesses identified in
your reflective phase you need to
plan how you are going to up your
game.
You need to think about:
• What you need to do
• Why
• When do you need to do it
• How you might approach it
Set down the competencies you want to
work on. Then note whether you think
skill, knowledge or insight is required.
Finally, set priorities – which are the
most important to act on?
Skills – These are the means used to
carry out work effectively. The most
obvious managerial and professional
examples include making decisions,
running meetings, negotiating,
influencing other people.
Knowledge – this is the acquisition of
data or new information about
developments in law, regulation or
practice. Sometimes it is not new
knowledge but confirmation of past
information that is required.
Insights – This is about perceptiveness –
some people would call it developing
wisdom. You can acquire knowledge and
skills but lack the extra dimension of
being able to generalise from specific
experiences – the ‘aha’ factor!

9. PlanFor each area list:
• Competence requiring Improvement
• Development need (skill/knowledge/insight)
• Priority rating - (1 to 10 1=most important)
Explore the difference between your current skill level or
knowledge compared to the competence level required - you
have identified the nature of the gap to be plugged.
Then you need to think about how you personally like to learn or
what might be the best type of method to adopt to plug that
gap - you can explore the most effective options to help you.
Re-organize your list of priorities between short and long-term
developments. This will help you seek appropriate support and
resources. You can then set about closing the most important
and urgent gaps in your armoury in priority to those which are
simply nice to do.
As the SRA can ask to see your Competence Records at any time
it is necessary to keep a written record of your plan either
electronically or in traditional paper form. It will also help you to
keep your plan under review and a truly living document of
continuous improvement.
Prioritise

10. Choose

11. Choose
Choosing how to address your
learning and development needs may
in part be down to the resources at
your disposal.
Some firms provide learning and
development opportunities for their
personnel and some of this may well
be compulsory such as regulatory
training.
Where you have the freedom and
desire to bridge the gaps in your own
competence then you can tailor your
approach to your own preferred
learning style.
It is worth pointing out that whilst we
might enjoy listening or reading
rather than ‘doing’ these types of
learning may not be the best for
helping you overcome a weakness in
a particular field.
For many years the mindset for CPD
was ‘I must attend a course’. Whilst it
is still a possibility the choices even
here have widened with the advent of
flexible formats like webinars; videos
and podcasts.
However, attending a course is not
the only way to learn and the SRA is
not stipulating any particular method
– it is simply a requirement to ensure
that as a result you achieve and
remain competent to deliver a proper
standard of service.
Research into workplace learning
shows that 70% of what we learn is
part of the job and that 20% comes
from learning from others; only 10%
comes from formal training.

12. ChooseBEHAVIOUR OUTCOME RELATED LEARNING METHOD
Knowledge/Acquiring
Information Lecture/workshop
Reading
Structured discussion
Being Coached
Dealing direct with manager
Understanding of how to
apply information on the job Structured discussion
Case Study
Personal action planning
Being mentored
Networking
Secondments
Project work
Skills which incorporate
new on-the-job behaviours Role Play/Observation
Practice application
Personal action planning
Being coached
Dealings with colleagues
Attitudes and Interests
Job satisfaction and demonstration
of new on-the-job behaviour Structured discussion
Case Study
Role Play
Practice application
Personal action planning

13. Record

14. Record
How you record your development
plan and the work you have done to
address it is entirely up to you – you
could use a notebook or a computer
Word document but whatever you
choose to do it will have to be
something which you can show to the
SRA.
You need to be able to demonstrate
the way in which the activities you
have undertaken address the learning
and development needs you
identified as required to enable you
to
achieve and maintain your
competence to practice.
Your firm may produce a notebook or
a template for you to use but if not
creating your own Learning Journal
can be half the fun.
Some of you might like the scrapbook
approach in which you can stick
articles you have read or write
motivational quotes as well as
pictures and diagrams which you
might use on the job.
Some of you may prefer a Diary if you
keep a personal journal.
Whatever approach makes it easy for you
to add notes and records; make lists; but
enables you to find things later will work.
You might like to use an A5 notebook
with tabs and even pockets for:
• Records
• ‘To do’ lists
• Thoughts – concrete and dreams
• Contacts & references
• Meetings & learning events

15. A learning logtemplate
Learning
Aim
Date Subject Activity Area What did I
learn?
How could I apply what I have learnt
in practice?
To maximise my
profitability
01.01.16 Time recording Read Robert Mowbray’s article
http://www.lawskills.co.uk/arti
cles/2015/11/time-recording-
for-lawyers/
Lack of time
recording
discipline means
I am a busy fool
 Ensure all previous days’ time records up to
date before start new day’s work
 Set up reminder in Outlook at regular intervals
during the day to capture time spent
 When helping others always ask for file &
client matter details
01.02.16 Turnover & profitability Google search produced
https://research.legalservicesb
oard.org.uk/analysis/supply/ma
rket-financials/turnover-and-
profitability/
Need to be
aware of
published
research
 Examine drivers of profitability against firm’s
figures
01.03.16 Understanding financial
management
Watch video –
www.bit.ly/1OUpxRa

16. Evaluate

17. Evaluate
To examine the effectiveness of the
learning and development activity –
the return on your investment in time
and other resources – it is important
to evaluate how the activity has met
your needs.
Consider what you actually did and
how it related to your planned need
to improve your competence.
Specify the learning points you
gained from the activity and whether
you need to do further
activity as a result.
The process of evaluating the
effectiveness of what you have done
and its relevance to your goals is
important as it will help you to
develop new and improved habits; to
be more flexible and adaptable in the
way you learn and provide
opportunities for innovation by
experimenting in things you might
not otherwise have done.
Continuous learning to maintain and
improve competence will inevitably
mean that what you might have
hoped would be sufficient may simply
highlight that more and different
opportunities are required to become
fully conversant with a new law,
regulation or procedure before you
are competent.
Evaluation therefore helps you to
start the cycle of reflection all over
again and to improve the way you
learn – honing your skills.

18. GoodLuck!
Contact www.lawskills.co.uk
We’re here tohelp