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International Legal English Certificate (Cambridge ILEC)

ILEC is a Cambridge ESOL examination, developed in co-operation with TransLegal – Europe’s leading firm of lawyer-linguists. The exam is a high-level legal-oriented language qualification for lawyers and law students set at levels B2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

The International Legal English Certificate (Cambridge ILEC) is designed to assess English language competence in a legal context.

ILEC is recognised by leading associations of lawyers including the European Company Lawyers Association, the European Law Students Association, the International Association of Young Lawyers, and the European Young Bar Association. The exam is also recognized by leading academic institutions such as the College of Europe.

The exam consists of four separate papers testing reading, writing, listening and speaking, which together last just under 3.5 hours (not including breaks).
The Speaking test is conducted face-to-face by Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiners.

Cambridge ILEC is based on realistic tasks and topics that legal practitioners might expect to encounter in their daily working lives.

Cambridge ILEC assesses English language ability at Levels B2 and C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) - an internationally recognised benchmark of language ability. Levels of performance in the exam are distinguished by a range of passing and failing grades. The passing grades are B2 Pass, C1 Pass and C1 Pass with Merit.