The Court of Appeal yesterday (31/03/2026) handed down CILEX and others v Mazur and others [2026] EWCA Civ 369, judgment dated 31 March 2026. The case concerned the meaning of “carrying on the conduct of litigation” under the Legal Services Act 2007, and in particular whether unauthorised persons working in firms or law centres may perform litigation tasks under the supervision of an authorised individual without themselves committing an offence.
The full Judgment is available HERE
Yes, the High Court’s decision was overturned and the profession’s instinct to breathe a sigh of relief is understandable. The Court of Appeal has plainly rejected the High Court’s sharp divide between an unauthorised person merely “assisting” and an unauthorised person “conducting litigation under supervision.” It held an unauthorised person may perform tasks within the conduct of litigation for and on behalf of an authorised individual, provided proper arrangements for supervision, management and control are in place, and provided the authorised individual retains responsibility.
In that sense, the industry has won something important. It is also a clear and welcome win for CILEX-qualified professionals, whose practical contribution to litigation has too often been understated. The judgment recognises, in more realistic terms, the value of properly supervised legal work carried out by skilled professionals who are not solicitors. CILEX practitioners deserve credit, and congratulations, for a decision which gives overdue recognition to the role they play across modern litigation practice.
But it is too simple, and in my view too careless, to say Mazur has been cleanly “overturned” and leave it there. The key paragraph in the judgment is para 187, in particular 187(v):
“An unauthorised person may lawfully perform any tasks, which are within the
scope of the conduct of litigation, for and on behalf of an authorised individual
such as a solicitor or appropriately authorised CILEX member, provided the
authorised individual retains responsibility for the tasks delegated to the
Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. CILEX and others v Mazur and others
unauthorised person (both formal responsibility and the responsibilities
identified at section 1(3) of the 2007 Act). In that situation, the authorised
individual is the person carrying on the conduct of litigation.“
The Court of Appeal has corrected the high court’s over-rigid reading of the Legal Services Act 2007. It has not declared open season for firms to let paralegals, clerks or unqualified fee earners run litigation however they like, so long as a solicitor’s name floats somewhere above the file. The judgment does not support that reading at all. On the contrary, it repeatedly anchors lawfulness in retained responsibility, proper delegation and supervision, and regulatory control.
That distinction matters because much of the commentary since judgment risks collapsing two separate propositions into one. The first proposition is right: the High Court was wrong to say unauthorised staff may only “support” and may never conduct litigation under supervision. The Court of Appeal rejected that distinction in terms. The second proposition is much more doubtful: that firms may now treat unqualified staff as practical litigators in their own right, with supervision reduced to a paper fiction. Nothing in the judgment justifies that leap.
The strongest point for caution lies in the court’s own language. The authorised individual remains the person carrying on the conduct of litigation because the authorised individual retains both formal responsibility and the professional responsibilities imposed by section 1(3) of the 2007 Act: independence, integrity, proper standards of work, best interests of the client, and duty to the court. Those are not decorative labels. They are the heart of the court’s reasoning. The appeal succeeded because the court treated delegation as lawful where responsibility remains real. If responsibility becomes nominal, the logic of the judgment starts to break down.
This is why some celebrations feel premature. Many people are reading the result as though the Court of Appeal has endorsed prevailing market practice wholesale. It has not. It accepted delegation as part of a long-standing and regulated professional reality, but it did so on the footing of proper supervision and retained responsibility by the authorised person. It did not endorse absent supervision, unchecked automation, mass issue models with no meaningful legal oversight, or structures in which the authorised individual is too remote to be said to be directing, managing or controlling anything of substance. In fact, the court expressly said the degree of appropriate control and supervision will depend on the circumstances. Sometimes prior approval will be required; in more routine work, regular meetings and sampling may suffice. That is a flexible standard, but it is still a standard.
There is another reason not to overstate the decision. The court did not produce an exhaustive code for what does and does not fall within the “conduct of litigation.” It expressly refused to provide a comprehensive list. That refusal is more important than many commentators admit. It means uncertainty has not vanished. It has shifted. The broad proposition is clearer than before, but borderline cases will remain highly fact-sensitive, especially where firms try to push delegation models to commercial extremes. Anyone presenting the case as total certainty is reading a nuance-heavy judgment as a slogan.
The line now sits between lawful delegation with retained responsibility, and unlawful or impermissible arrangements where responsibility is not truly retained by the authorised individual. Many firms may discover, on honest inspection, their systems sit comfortably on the right side. Some may discover the opposite. The judgment helps the industry, but it also exposes the industry. It invites regulators and opponents alike to ask whether supervision on a given file was genuine, structured and defensible, or merely asserted after the event.
This is especially relevant because the court itself noted the “real world impact” of the first-instance decision and the scramble by regulators to align guidance. That passage is telling. It shows the court knew the sector wanted practical reassurance. Yet the answer it gave was not “carry on as before.” It was more measured. The court restored room for proper delegation, but left details of supervision and control to the regulators. So the next battleground may not be pure statutory construction at all. It may be regulatory standards, evidence of oversight, file design, escalation protocols, and the quality of supervision in practice.
In that respect, the judgment is positive for the industry but not permissive in the way some hope. It protects sensible operational models in firms and law centres. It avoids criminalising commonplace supervised delegation. It recognises the realities of modern litigation practice. All of that is significant. But it does not turn unauthorised staff into autonomous holders of litigation rights. Nor does it reduce the authorised lawyer’s role to a compliance umbrella. The authorised individual must still be able to say, credibly and not theatrically, “this litigation is being conducted by me, through others, under arrangements I have put in place and for which I remain responsible.”
So is Mazur really overturned? Only if one means the specific High Court distinction has been rejected. If one means the underlying caution about who truly conducts litigation has disappeared, then no. The better view is that the decision has been qualified by important limits in a way that helps the profession while preserving the central discipline of the statutory regime.
The strongest post Mazur will be the firms with robust supervision in place. Those who may find themselves in weaker positions may be the firms who mistake this judgment for a blanket amnesty.
The winners here are CILEX and CILEX qualified professionals and to you, congratulations. To that degree, the world has been put right!
Author: TOF
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