The scheme offers paralegals who have little chance of securing a traning contract the opportunity to become solicitors as long as they achieve certain standards laid down by the SRA. Nottingham Law School will be acting as external assessor.

Those with training contracts will face a toughened up assessment process, based on the same SRA outcomes, which it is hoped will help the raise the quality of all newly qualified solicitors.

Tim Pearce, development manager at the SRA, said that although none of the trainee solicitors in the pilot would qualify before two years, in the future those with previous experience of working in a law firm might be able to qualify in 18 months, provided they met the new standards.

“We’re not doing this to speed people through the vocational stage, we’re doing this to raise standards,” he said.

“It is primarily being done in the public interest, though it will hopefully be beneficial to firms.”

Peter Todd, training partner at London firm Hodge Jones & Allen, said that in the future, qualification would cease to be automatic.

“Some people might qualify early, as long as they have achieved the desired outcomes,” he said. “Others will be late. The current model of automatic admission whether or not you’ve acquired the skills is fairly pointless.

“As a profession, we have probably not been sufficiently rigorous. It is vital for protection of the public that people demonstrate they have the required skills.”

Todd said that rather than making training easier, in a way that some feared might open the floodgates, the reforms would increase the administration costs facing law firms and the management time involved but raise standards.

Nicola Murphy, head of litigation at Leeds City Council, said the council had joined the pilot scheme after two paralegals approached the SRA themselves.

“A number of people have academic qualifications, but haven’t managed to get training contracts and can’t see much possibility of getting one,” she said.

“For these people the new system is a fantastic opportunity.”

Murphy said that without the pilot, the council would not be training any solicitors this year.

“The beauty of the scheme is that it applies to existing members of staff who have been doing a really good job for us. They’re dedicated and very able.

We know what we’re taking on.”

Murphy said the SRA would be acting as external assessor for two paralegals involved in the pilot, while Nottingham Law School supervised another.

Gemma Knight, trainee development manager at national firm Beachcroft, said that the pilot helped give structure to the current training regime.

“It ties up well with the framework of competencies we already have,” she said. “It’s good to have flexibility.”

Knight said seven of Beachcroft’s 31 trainees had been selected to take part in the pilot, on a random basis.

“It would be good to have flexibility, so that trainees can qualify as and when are ready to become solicitors,” she said.

Fiona Cunningham, head of the professional division of Nottingham Law School, said the pilot was part of the biggest shake-up in the training of solicitors since the introduction of the LPC 15 years ago.

She said the changes would allow “pro bono” work, supervised by a solicitor, to count towards qualification.

A total of 46 law firms are involved in the pilot, including Linklaters, Jones Day, Freeth Cartwright and Dickinson Dees.