If you need to attend a course to qualify as a legal aid supervisor or check that you are up to date with the latest requirements, this is the course for you! Legal aid supervisors need knowledge of their subject and practice experience, which we can’t do for you; but if you are new to supervision, or haven’t supervised a full-time equivalent caseworker in the past 5 years, this course will ensure you meet the LAA’s Generic Supervisor Requirements (Section 2(ii) of the Supervisor Self-Declaration Forms).

LAPG’s six-module Management Skills for Private Practice Course. The modules are designed around the Law Society LEXCEL standard, the Specialist Quality Mark and the SRA competence framework.

The programme covers key areas including finance and resource management, business planning and risk management, people management, policies and compliance, and marketing and communications. For legal aid practitioners, it also covers managing a legal aid contract and working with the Legal Aid Agency.

Planning is at the heart of a successful practice. We discuss approaches to strategic and operational planning, including undertaking a SWOT and PESTLE analysis and setting meaningful organisational and operational objectives. We also look at business continuity and general risk management. With this in mind we discuss GDPR and data security risk.

All legal aid firms must hold either the Legal Aid Agency’s Specialist Quality Mark or the Law Society’s Lexcel standard. They also need policies and procedures to ensure compliance with SRA, OISC, Legal Aid and other regulatory requirements. This risk focussed session covers how to approach effective policies, procedures safeguards and controls. In addition, our guest tutor, Phanuel Mutumburi, leads a session on diversity, equity and inclusion and their importance in an effective workplace.

For this session we are joined by two experienced contract managers from the Legal Aid Agency who will help participants better understand how to manage their legal aid contracts and avoid audit issues and contract notices. After that, Matt Howgate and Vicky Ling share their expertise and experiences of effectively managing legal aid contracts.