Register an Assignment
Register as a LocumThe quick answer to this question is yes, you can. We have had a couple of assignments covered by locums in the past who have conditions on their practising certificate, but this is very rare and opportunities, where solicitors firms would be prepared to take you, are few and far between.
One of the main issues is trust. Locums are often placed fairly blindly into law firms and the firm is completely dependent on our judgment when sending across a CV.
Every locum on our books is checked out before we send over a CV and we are usually able to determine whether there have been any incidents in your past. We always disclose conditions or previous appearances before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal or any involvement with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
We appreciate that quite often conditions relate to minor breaches of the Solicitors Rules in respect of accounting procedures and this is why on a couple of occasions we have been able to assist locums with conditions.
If you have conditions on your certificate that relate to issues of alleged dishonesty, serious misconduct or conduct falling below the level required of a solicitor, you are unlikely to get locum work through us. Naturally, we are happy to discuss any conditions with you prior to registration. Please be aware that thanks to a number of websites publishing all former decisions by the SRA (even when they themselves remove them after a certain time) we can usually work out if there have been appearances before the SDT etc…
This is not always the case though and if we do miss someone we do not accept liability if a law firm takes a locum through us and subsequently find that the locum had conditions at some point or appeared before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
The same applies to Legal Executives. Although very few appear to ever get hauled before the ILEX disciplinary tribunal we still want to know about it if you have been before the tribunal and also do background checks.
