Section C: Role Profiles for Legal Advice Workers

A role profile is the set of units of National Occupational Standards (NOS) relevant to a particular role.

How to develop a Role Profile

1. List the tasks, duties or responsibilities of the job
Make a list of all the tasks, duties or responsibilities that the worker has to carry out. If the worker has a job description, this information may already be available (but check that the job description is up-to-date and accurately describes the individual’s work).

2. Identify relevant units
Consider each task, duty or responsibility in turn.

Look at the Legal Advice units numbers LA1 – LA30 and other sets of NOS and identify the unit, or units, that are relevant to the task, duty or responsibility. (Tip: it’s a good idea to make a note of the relevant units against the appropriate line in the job description or list of tasks, duties or responsibilities for the job.)

As you do this activity, you will probably find that

Some units are relevant to more than one task or responsibility
For some tasks or responsibilities, there is a single unit which matches very well
For some tasks or responsibilities, there are a number of units which are relevant
For some tasks or responsibilities, there is no appropriate Legal Advice unit ( if this is the case, look for the unit in other sets of standards. See Useful Contacts in Section F)

3. Identify the relevant knowledge units
The Legal Advice NOS also contain units which describe the knowledge that workers require when they are working in a particular specialist area (such as criminal law, welfare rights or housing) or with a particular client group (such as students).

Consider which areas of specialist knowledge a worker in this role requires and to what level. The knowledge units LA31 – LA64 are usually presented at two or three levels:

First-line advice
Advice and casework
Specialised advice and casework

It is important to read the units carefully to select the appropriate knowledge level for the job.

4. Produce the role profile
When you have identified all the units from the Legal Advice NOS and other sets of NOS, which are relevant to each task, duty or responsibility, you may eliminate any duplicates and produce a role profile – the set of units of NOS relevant to that particular role.

Each worker needs a copy of their role profile and the units of NOS that are in it. Role profiles help workers understand exactly what is expected of them, and what they need to know and understand if they are to do their jobs effectively.

In an organisation, many role profiles will be similar, or at least share a number of common units. This is helpful for understanding what are the core NOS required by the organisation, what are the subtle differences between roles, and what workers may need to learn if they are to progress successfully from one role to another.

This Section offers a number of role profiles which should be considered as examples only – role profiles will differ considerably from one situation to another. These examples do, however, illustrate how units of the Legal Advice standards and other NOS may be combined together to create roles for workers at all levels.

You can use the example role profiles and the list of units in Section D to create role profiles for the staff in your agency.