The Police Station Portfolio
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The purposes of the portfolio are to:
- Encourage representatives to consider and reflect upon their performance in the police station
- Encourage the supervising solicitor to review the representative's competence and take steps to address any deficiencies
- Enable AOs to assess a representative's competence to give advice in police stations
The following summary is for guidance only, and does not include all the requirements affecting the portfolio. The portfolio will contain summaries of nine cases in which the probationary representative has been involved with both the giving of advice, and attendance at an interview between the police and the client, at a police station.
The portfolio consists of two parts, to be completed in three stages in the following chronological order:
- Part A, Stage One
- Two cases in which the representative observes the supervising solicitor providing advice to a client in a police station. Indictable-only and/or duty solicitor cases may be included in this stage
- Part A, Stage Two
- Two cases in which the representative gives advice to a client in a police station whilst being observed by the supervising solicitor. Indictable-only and/or duty solicitor cases must not be included in this stage.
- The portfolio must contain written feedback from the supervising solicitor in respect of these two cases. If the supervising solicitor has to interject during the course of a case it will not be acceptable.
- Part B, Stage Three
- Five cases in which the probationary representative gives advice to a client in a police station without the supervising solicitor present. Indictable-only and/or duty solicitor cases must not be included in Part B of the portfolio.
Part A cases cannot be older than three months at the time of submission for technical compliance checking.
Names of clients must not be included in the case reports.
All cases used in the portfolio must be identified by the Criminal Defence Services (CDS) unique file number, which is required to be allocated to cases under the general criminal contract.
Cases must be in chronological order.
Each case used in the portfolio must involve a different client. Co-defendants must not be included as separate clients. The same client may appear more than once in portfolios, but not more than twice, as long as different issues are dealt with.
Each case must involve a formal interview of the suspect by the police at a police station. A case may include an identification parade, but must not be limited to such a parade. A case involving telephone-only advice cannot be submitted.
Indictable-only cases can be included in Stage One. Stages Two and Three, however, must not contain cases involving indictable-only offences and/or duty solicitor cases.
All parts of the portfolio must be completed. The portfolio must be signed by both the candidate, and the supervising solicitor.
The portfolio will also include details of the training and study undertaken by the representative together with details of the support and guidance offered by the firm, and supervising solicitor. This will not be taken into account when the portfolio is considered by the AO.
If the portfolio were not satisfactory, however, the training/support section of the portfolio may be referred to. If it were clear from that section that the representative had undertaken insufficient or inappropriate training, or had been offered little support, advice might be given to the candidate by the AO on the type of training that should be undertaken and any additional support required from the firm.
The candidate must ensure that the portfolio is completed in all respects prior to its submission for marking; this includes the Part A and Part B cases. If any of these conditions is not satisfied, the candidate must fail the portfolio.
Note: Incomplete Part A portfolios will not be accepted by the AO.
The AO, to which Part A is submitted, must certify that sufficient details of the Stage One and Stage Two cases have been provided before the candidate can register themselves with the LSC as a probationary representative.
The certification of Part A concerns the technical content only, and does not infer that the Part A cases have been assessed as satisfactory.
Part A cases are to be returned to the candidate, who must re-submit those cases to an AO together with the Part B cases, within 12 months of the date of registration by the LSC as a probationary representative. Part B must be completed after certification of Part A by the AO, and subsequent confirmation of inclusion on the register by the LSC.
Written advice on the format and content of the case reports will be provided to prevent failures due to omissions of relevant information. The assessment criteria are set out below.
The candidate must consider in respect of each case:
- Case description
- Provide a brief description of the case, setting out what the case was about, describing what had to be done by the candidate, and what the result was. Each case must include the unique file number, which is required to be allocated to cases under the general criminal contract.
- Obtaining information
- State the relevant information that was obtained from the police, the client and any relevant third party.
- Assessment of information and advice to client
- Describe and analyse how the candidate assessed the information obtained, how they formulated their advice, and the advice given to the client.
- Dealing with the police and third parties, and making representations
- Describe and analyse how the candidate dealt with the police and third parties, including representations made, and how they dealt with any issues or problems that arose.
- Professional ethics
- Demonstrate that the candidate complied with relevant professional and ethical rules.
- Feedback and reflection
- Demonstrate that the candidate has received feedback on their performance by the supervisor, has adequately reflected on their performance, including consideration of training needs where appropriate.
For more information or to discuss with an accreditations team member please ring us on 0151 236 2024
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