Training contracts
Your training contract is the first document you must submit as a trainee. It is an important document that sets out the obligations on you, as a trainee, and on your firm, as a training organisation.
You must return your signed training contract within 28 days of the start of your traineeship or within 28 days of being granted your entrance certificate; whichever is the later date. Any contracts that are returned late must be accompanied by a covering letter explaining the reasons for the late submission. Failure to return the contract on time may result in an equivalent extension to the period of your traineeship.
Until a training contract has been registered by us, trainees will not have full access to the PEAT2 section of their member’s portal. This will mean they cannot access their TCPD Log or upload their Quarterly Performance Reviews (PQPRs), even if they are receiving automatic reminder emails from one of our email accounts.
Where do I get my training contract?
There is a standard form of training contract that you must use. This will become available to you, once we have granted you with an entrance certificate, through the member’s portal (which can be accessed by clicking on the link below).
Access your training contract here
If you have any issues accessing the pre-populated training contract on the members portal, please use this draft copy.
There is a Law Society administration fee of £65. Payment instructions will be provided once your contract is received. The Books of Council and Session will also charge a registration fee, which is approximately £20. They will invoice you directly.
Once you have completed your contract, please send to:
Qualifications coordinator
Education, Training and Qualifications
The Law Society of Scotland
Atria One, 144 Morrison Street
Edinburgh, EH3 8EX
or
DX 1, EDINBURGH 1
The Society would advise that you send your application by either recorded delivery or “signed for”.
You can find a copy of the extract of the Deed of Declaration, showing the standard conditions to the training contract, on the left-hand side of this page. This is not your contract and is provided here for information only. Please do not send a signed version of this to us.
Assignations
An assignation is when a trainee moves their traineeship from one training unit to another. When a contract is assigned, the original training unit is released from its responsibilities under the training contract and the new training unit accepts those responsibilities.
The Law Society's consent must be obtained, prior to a trainee assigning their training contract. In order to provide this consent, both parties must first provide their agreement to the assignation. As an assignation may benefit one of the parties to the training contract but not necessarily both, if you are a trainee who is considering assigning your training contract, you should discuss this with your Training Manager and contact the Law Society as early as possible. An assignation should not be viewed as a default way of resolving training issues.
An small administrative fee is payable to the Law Society, for processing an assignation. This is normally paid by the trainee or the new training unit. A fee is also payable to the Registers of Scotland for registering the assignation.
It is not possible to assign a traineeship within the final three months of the original training contract. If you are a trainee who wishes to change firms in the final three months of your training, you might want to consider a secondment.
Please direct any questions, requests or information about assignations to louisebradley@lawscot.org.uk.
In order to approve the assignation of a training contract we need to receive:
- an email from the trainee requesting this, together with a reason as to why they want to assign their contract and the preferred assignation date.
- Emails from the current and prospective training entities consenting to the assignation and confirming the reason for the assignation and the preferred assignation date.
The onus is on the trainee to arrange for these to be provided to the Society.
Once we have these emails, we will be able to confirm whether we can approve the assignation or whether it needs to go to the Admission Sub-committee for consideration. Where any matters of concern are raised by one of the parties or the reason for the assignation is disputed, the matter is usually considered by that Sub-Committee, which meets once a month.
You must give us at least 10 working days notice when requesting an assignation. You should not change training unit until you have received email confirmation from the Society that your assignation has been approved.
Secondments
Trainees can also fulfil part of their training period on secondment at any of their employer’s places of business or at another training unit.
When a trainee is seconded, the original training unit remains responsible for their supervision. The original training unit’s Training Manager must ensure that the trainee is appropriately supervised by someone at the organisation that the trainee has been seconded to.
Unlike with an assignation, Law Society approval is not needed to go on secondment. However, the Training Manager is also required to inform us of the location and duration of any secondment within 14 days of it commencing.
A secondment can take place outwith Scotland, provided that for a minimum period of six months, the trainee fulfils the requirements of their training contract in Scotland.
Please direct any questions, requests or information about secondments to louisebradley@lawscot.org.uk.
Termination of training contracts
Where either party to a training contract would like to discuss the possible termination of that contract, they should contact the Law Society’s Admissions Manager, Sophie McGhee (sophiemcghee@lawscot.org.uk).
We have also produced a policy statement on the termination of training contracts by reason of redundancy.
Additional
Registers of Scotland - Extract Deed of Declaration
