- Introduction
- Section A - The National Occupational Standards for Legal Advice
- Section B - Putting National Occupational Standards to work
- Section C - Role profiles for Legal Advice Workers
- Section D - Full unit and element title listings and unit summaries
- Section E - Lists of other National Occupational Standards
- Section F - Useful contacts
- Section G - Presentation materials
- Section H - Case study materials
Unit Summaries
| Unit Title | Unit Summary |
LA1 Establish communication with clients |
This Unit is for you if you are responsible for welcoming clients to the
organisation and explaining the services your organisation can
provide. You may be the client’s first contact with the service so it is
important to meet and greet them appropriately.
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG1. |
| LA2 Support clients to make use of the service | This Unit is for you if you are involved with interviewing clients. You
could be carrying out a preliminary interview or it may be that the
client has been referred to you by a colleague or another agency.
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG2. |
| LA3 Develop and manage interviews with clients | This Unit is for you if you are involved with establishing a supportive working relationship with clients and helping them to explain their needs. You will need to be able to make the client feel at ease and also be able to explore any additional information about the client, which may be important in providing appropriate help. You must also be able to recognise when there is a need to take immediate action and follow the appropriate processes for doing so. You may also
have to cope with clients who may be abusive or violent and know how to do this safely.
The Unit requires you to:
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| LA4 Provide information and advice using the telephone | This Unit is for you if, as part of your job role, you have responsibility for providing advice to clients on the telephone. Although everyone working in the independent legal advice sector is likely to provide advice by telephone at some point, this Unit is about working with a client to give advice on problems where the only contact is by telephone. The Unit is about the skills and knowledge you will need to establish and maintain contact with clients on the telephone and it is likely that you will need to follow the Unit in conjunction with one or more others, e.g. Unit LA3: Develop and manage interviews with clients or Unit LA11: Provide legal advice to clients.
The Unit requires you to:
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| LA5 Provide information to clients | This Unit is for you if your role is the provision of information to clients. The information may be in written format or may be provided orally. Other formats and communication methods, e.g. signing, Braille etc. may also be used according to the needs of the client. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice, Guidance and Advocacy, AGA6, managed by ENTO |
| LA6 Support clients to plan, implement and review action | This Unit is for you if your role is to work with clients to enable them to plan and take action to achieve an appropriate outcome. It will involve you in helping clients to be clear about what they want to achieve and enabling them to plan and implement a course of action. You will work with clients to identify the options available to them, the implications of particular courses of action and any potential obstacles. You will support them to reach decisions and plan the implementation of those decisions. You will also support clients to review and amend plans in the light of circumstances. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA7 Provide continuing support to clients | This Unit is for you if your role involves supporting clients on an ongoing basis throughout the progress of their case. This could be where the client is working directly with you or where a particular aspect of their case has been referred to another service. This Unit is not about providing counselling support for the client and you must be clear about the boundaries of your role as an adviser. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA8 Enable clients to act on their own behalf | This Unit is for you if your role involves you in working directly with clients to help them gain the skills and confidence to act on their own behalf. You may provide ongoing support for the client during the proceedings, which may involve you attending hearings etc., but not formally participating in the process. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA9 Assist clients to gain access to other services | This Unit is for you if your role involves you in helping clients to recognise and access other services. You will establish that your service is unable to meet the client’s needs and you will direct them to an alternative service that will be able to provide the appropriate support. This is signposting, not an in-depth client-referral process, which is covered in Unit LA10: Provide and receive referrals on behalf of clients. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice, Guidance and Advocacy, Unit AGA16, managed by ENTO. |
| LA10 Provide and receive referrals on behalf of clients | This Unit is for you if your role involves working directly with clients to agree whether you can meet their service needs or whether another service would be most appropriate. The process is more active than that in Unit LA9: Assist clients to gain access to other services.
You may need to set the referral in motion using agreed organisational processes and procedures. You may also be involved with receiving referrals from other services. The referral may be to another service or to another adviser in your own organisation. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA11 Provide legal advice to clients | This Unit is for you if your role involves you in working directly with clients to establish their needs and expectations of the service and to provide them with appropriate and accurate legal advice. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA12 Manage legal advice cases | This Unit is for you if you are involved in managing an ongoing case for a client. It may involve you in briefing someone outside the organisation to carry out some part of the case (e.g. a barrister) but it will be your overall responsibility to ensure that the case moves forward. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA13 Act on behalf of clients in informal proceedings | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for making representations, or acting, on behalf of clients. This will involve you in representing clients’ interests in situations other than formal proceedings where the clients are either unable to represent themselves or where the most successful outcome will be achieved by this course of action. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA14 Prepare cases for representation in formal proceedings | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for preparing cases and clients for formal proceedings. You will need to understand the legislation involved in any case and the codes of practice, procedural rules and ethical requirements governing the preparation of cases for formal proceedings in courts or tribunals. An important part of your role will be helping clients to understand and be prepared for their role in formal proceedings. Before embarking on research or preparation for any case you should consider whether formal legal proceedings are the best option available. You should also have taken into consideration your own skills and limitations and that of others in your organisation, your organisation’s practice and policy on representation, the types of case they take on and the funding criteria concerned. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA15 Represent clients in formal proceedings | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for presenting cases in formal proceedings in courts or tribunals. As part of this responsibility you will need to consider your own skills and limitations and whether the client should be referred. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA16 Negotiate on behalf of clients | This Unit is for you if your role involves you in negotiating on behalf of your client with other organisations and agencies. This is not the same as representing the client in formal or informal situations, which is covered in Unit LA13: Act on behalf of clients in informal proceedings and Unit LA15: Represent clients in formal proceedings. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG11. |
| LA17 Design information materials for use in the service | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for, or contribute to, designing and writing information materials that support the provision of legal information and advice. Information materials may use text and graphics and may be produced in a variety of formats to meet the needs of the target audience. The design of information materials will depend on the nature and purpose of the information and the nature and needs of the clients for whom it is intended. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance, Unit AG20, revised December 2005, managed by ENTO. |
| LA18 Obtain and provide legal information materials | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for providing legal information materials within your service. You will be involved in reviewing the use of and need for information materials and obtaining and supplying them. Legal information materials may be made available in a variety of formats (e.g. posters, leaflets, newsletters, video) and can involve storage and dissemination using a range of media (e.g. paper-based, audio, website, intranet). Legal information materials may be for use by practitioners within the service or by clients and members of the general public. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA19 Manage personal caseload | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for managing your own caseload of clients. Caseload management is an important part of ensuring that all cases are dealt with appropriately to achieve the outcomes required by the client within the timescales required by the service. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG14. |
| LA20 Evaluate and develop own practice | This Unit is for you if your role involves reflecting on own practice, reviewing own practice against goals, setting and prioritising goals and targets for self-development and adapting practice in the light of changes in professional practices. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Personnel, G3. |
| LA21 Evaluate the quality of client service | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for reviewing and evaluating the quality of the service provided to clients. Organisations need to know how they are delivering services to clients. Without this information, they will have no way of knowing if their clients are satisfied and are likely to return to the organisation should other problems arise. Nor will they know how they can improve client service to meet and exceed client expectations. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Customer Service, Unit 29, managed by the Institute of Customer Service and approved in January 2006. The original Unit uses the term ‘customer’ but the Legal Advice Sector is more familiar with the term ‘client’. For ease of identification in the National Standards database, we have left ‘customer’ in the Unit and element titles but substituted ‘client’ in the rest of the unit content. |
| LA22 Liaise with other services | This Unit is for you if your role involves you in establishing relationships and exchanging information with other agencies and services. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG12. |
| LA23 Operate within networks | This Unit is for you if you are required to work with others in networks, either formal or informal, as part of your role. Networks play an important part in providing support, encouraging the spread of good practice and information and enabling professional development. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance Unit AG18, revised December 2005, managed by ENTO. |
| LA24 Influence changes to legislation, policy or practice | This Unit is for you if your role includes working to influence changes to national, regional or local legislation, policy or the ways in which legislation or policy is put into practice when it impacts adversely on people. You will need to understand your organisation’s policy and procedures relating to this, and the areas of legislation, policy and practice that are within the scope of this activity. You may be contributing to an organisation or network that is seeking to influence national legislation or policy, or working with others to influence changes to regional or local policy or the ways that this is put into practice. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA25 Provide second-tier support to others | This Unit is for you if you are providing second-tier support to other services, organisations or individuals. The support defined in this Unit does not include the design and delivery of learning and development materials or programmes; these activities are covered by the National Occupational Standards for Learning and Development. It does include advice that may be provided by specialist agencies, for example advice on HIV/Aids or employment discrimination, and
advice on issues of policy relating to specific areas, such as confidentiality or case management. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA26 Set up and maintain client-referral systems | This Unit is for you if your role requires you to work strategically to define and agree referral and information-sharing principles within your own organisation and with other agencies. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA27 Develop the capacity of the organisation to meet the needs of clients | This Unit is for you if your role requires you to work strategically to develop the capacity and capability of your organisation to meet the needs of existing and potential clients. Meeting the changing needs of clients for inclusive advice services and flexible access is an important part of the service. Doing this successfully requires you to be aware of the potential constraints of contractual obligations and funding criteria as well as the potential target client group of your organisation. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA28 Provide support for other practitioners | This Unit is for you if you are responsible for managing, supervising, training or supporting other practitioners to maintain and develop effective practice with clients. The support process will include providing professional supervision where this is appropriate. Practitioners may be those within your organisation or those who work in other organisations or related networks. In addition, you may be responsible for providing this service as part of second-tier services or contracts. The Unit requires you to:
This Unit has been imported from the National Occupational Standards for Advice and Guidance revised by ENTO, December 2005, Unit AG17. |
| LA29 Provide legal advice using electronic media | This Unit is for you if your main method of providing legal advice to clients is through the use of e-mail or Web-based responses. The Unit does not include the use of telephone advice or text messages. It is expected that users of this Unit will already have some experience as advice workers and must have a basic understanding of IT, particularly the use of the Internet. Written communication skills are particularly important in this Unit. The Unit requires you to:
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| LA30 Facilitate communication using an interpreter | This Unit is for you if you are involved with communicating with clients and need the help of an interpreter to assist the communication process. The interpreter may be involved in directly assisting you to communicate with the client in a way that facilitates understanding. The Unit is generic and is designed to include working with interpreters in a range of languages, including British Sign Language. It is important to note that it is not the role of the interpreter to explain anything to the client.
The Unit is not about the functions performed by the interpreter.
There are National Occupational Standards for interpreting. It is about the functions and actions that you need to perform to help the interpreter to do their job effectively.
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