皇冠体育app

Overview

If you hold a legal aid contract with LAA you must have the SQM standard or the Lexcel Practice Management standard (Lexcel), owned by the Law Society.

皇冠体育app LAA owns the quality assurance standards known as Specialist Quality Mark (SQM).

Specialist Quality Mark

皇冠体育app Specialist Quality Mark (SQM) is a quality assurance standard designed for organisations:

• supplying complex legal help
• offering a full range of legal services, including representation in court (where necessary and permitted) by formally trained professionals.

皇冠体育app SQM standard and guidance can be found below:

SQM Cycle

皇冠体育app Specialist Quality Mark accreditation period will increase from 3 years to 5 years from 1 October 2025.

皇冠体育app trigger point for a legal services provider to move to the 5 year cycle shall be the date that the Pre-Quality Mark Audit or the Post-Quality Mark Audit takes place. Where the Audit takes place on or after 1 October 2025, and accreditation is awarded, that accreditation will last for five years.

Examples of the circumstances when the new 5 year accreditation period does and does not apply can be found in the document below.

Updates

We publish updates about the Specialist Quality Mark standards in the LAA bulletin.