Professional Skills Course

Pre-requisite to admission as a solicitor or barrister in Gibraltar.

  • Law
  • Full Time
  • 8 Days
  • Start September 2023

About this course

The Professional Skills Course (PSC) will be delivered in accordance with the requirements set by the Supreme Court (Amendment) Act 2015. This legislation requires all persons who wish to be admitted and enrolled as either a solicitor or barrister of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar and who have completed the Solicitors’ LPC or been called to the Bar in England and Wales to complete three mandatory components. One of these components is academic which is delivered by way of a Professional Skills Course.
This skills course will be delivered by tutors from The University of Law. By way of background The University of Law (ULAW), formerly known as The College of Law, is a private university in the United Kingdom, providing law degrees, specialist legal training, and continuing professional development courses for British barristers and solicitors.
ULAW tutors are highly experienced tutors and through their relationships with firms are constantly being updated in market practice. This allows for sharing of this knowledge in a contemporaneous way. ULAW tutors are all qualified solicitors or barristers who train paralegals, apprentices, trainees and qualified lawyers on a regular basis. They are energised and eager to develop programmes that are relevant to modern-day learning requirements, being both flexible and adaptive and operating within financial reality and the requirements of clients.

Course Delivery

The core modules will be taught online in three separate block deliveries from 9am to approximately 5:30pm:

Client Care and Professional Standards:

Tuesday 12th September and Wednesday 13th September 2023

Financial and Business Skills:

Thursday 14th  September,  Friday 15th September and Monday 18th September 2023

There will be a 1 hour 30 minute examination prescribed by the SRA. The assessment must be passed to complete the module.

Advocacy and Communication Skills:

Tuesday 19th , Wednesday 20th September and Thursday 21st September 2023

The Core Modules delivered will comprise the content, structure and assessment required by the SRA for trainee solicitors as a pre-requisite to admission as a solicitor in England and Wales.

Who is the course for?

Persons holding a law degree who have or are in the process of being called to the Bar in England and Wales, or have completed the Solicitors LPC, and wish to practise law in Gibraltar.

What would be the result of passing this course?

A person successfully completing the course will be awarded a Certificate of Attendance once all three modules have been completed, which is one of three mandatory components for being called to the Bar or to being enrolled as a Solicitor in Gibraltar (after 1st July 2015). The Financial Business Skills exam must be passed to obtain a certificate.

This course is independently recognised by the Gibraltar Bar Council. The awarding body for this course is the University of Law. The University of Law and University of Gibraltar are the academic institutions and, as such, the provider of the course and examinations and is not involved in determining who is eligible to practise law in Gibraltar. Enquiries on whether a person is eligible to practise law in Gibraltar are to be made to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority on info@lsra.gi.

Entry profile

To be eligible for this course, candidates should hold a Law degree or a legal qualification such as CILEx level 6. If the student wishes to use the core modules as part of their application for admission as a solicitor in England and Wales, they must ensure that they have satisfied the SRA requirements for undertaking the PSC.

If English is not your first language, you will need to provide proof of competence in English which is acceptable to the University.

Fees

The course fee for academic year 2023/2024 is £1,890.00.
This includes initial registration fees, as well as course materials and tuition.

Register Your Interest

Applications have now closed for academic year 2023/2024. Please register your interest below for the next course.