CILEX Graduation and Admissions Ceremony

The CILEX Graduation and Admissions Ceremony marks a significant milestone in our members journey, bringing together those from across our diverse membership, whether that’s new members graduating into CILEX, those being sworn in as Chartered Legal Executives or receiving Advocacy or Practice Rights.

The event honours the remarkable achievements of all our members and celebrates their hard-earned success.

This is an invitation only event for members who have graduated or upgraded their membership between October 2024 and September 2025. Eligible members are currently being sent their invites. If you have never been to your graduation but would like to attend or you think you're eligible and haven't received your invitation, please get intouch via email at graduation@cilex.org.uk

Graduating this year will be
CILEX Chartered Legal Executive Advocate
CILEX Lawyer
CILEX Chartered Legal Executive
CILEX Graduate*
CILEX Graduate Practitioner
CILEX Chartered Paralegal
CILEX Practitioner

* Those who have completed both the CILEX Level 3 Diploma in Law and Practice and Level 6 Diploma in Law and Practice (or equivalent), this is the qualification which preceded CILEX Professional Qualification (CPQ). 
Those currently studying the CPQ will become eligible to attend their CILEX Lawyer Admission Ceremony on successful completion of all applicable stages of the CPQ. 

Date: Saturday 17 October 2026 

Venue: Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London, SW1P 3EE


Throughout the day, we run two ceremonies: 


Morning ceremony:

9.00am

Registration opens

9.00am

Gowning and formal photography

10.15am

Graduates and guest take their seats

10.30am

Ceremony begins

12.00pm

Ceremony ends

12.00pm

Drinks reception

1.00pm

Event closes

Afternoon ceremony: 

1.30pm

Registration opens

1.30pm

Gowning and formal photography

2.45pm

Graduates and guest take their seats

3.00pm

Ceremony begins

4.30pm

Ceremony ends

4.30pm

Drinks reception

5.30pm

Event closes




Guest speaker
Mary is a jury advocate. She takes hugely complex facts and presents them in a clear and concise way so that juries can understand the evidence. She gains the trust of the most vulnerable witnesses and defendants and enables them to be heard. She is often instructed in difficult and challenging cases, sometimes described as hopeless cases. She has an extremely high success rate in her cases. In the last three years she has dealt with many cases with national and international media interest. These have included dealing with horrific murders of children which have involved sadistic torture and brutality. She defended one of the defendants in the Court of Appeal’s analysis on whole life murder cases. R v Stewart, Couzens, Tustin, Hughes and Monaghan. She has also received a Chief Crown Prosecutor’s Commendation for her work on the murder of Finley Boden. Mary has special expertise in questioning children, those with mental and physical health difficulties. She enabled a child with cerebral palsy to give evidence and to be heard. She has a forensic ability to evaluate and consider thousands of pages of bank statements, telephone messages and social media and to enable the jury to consider what matters. She exposes holes and gaps in evidence. Mary has taken her experience in rape cases to deal with serious multi-complainant sexual offences.Mary has a busy private practice defending allegations of rape for those whose career or livelihood would be more significantly impacted by a conviction. This has included Doctors, teachers, the clergy and businessmen. Mary is a sought after lecturer for advocacy and trial strategy. She regularly lectures to Solicitors, to the police and to other agencies.
Booking tickets
The CILEX Graduation and Admissions Ceremony is an invitation only event and details on how to book are included within your invitation email. If you've not received an email, but believe you are eligible to attend, please contact us at graduation@cilex.org.uk

We look forward to welcoming our members and their guests to the ceremony and celebrating this day with them.