TOLES International Certification

TOLES (Test of Legal English Skills), the world's leading English exam for lawyers, law students and legal translators.

TOLES International Certification

TOLES (Test of Legal English Skills) consists of a Legal English program structured in three levels of professional examinations (Foundation, Higher and Advanced) and the brand-new TOLES Professional Certificate. It is the most prestigious Legal English exam anywhere.

The exam levels are progressive steps to achieving the level of English required by employers, top law firms, international courts and companies and legal translators, among others.

A pass in each of the exams is rewarded by an international certification from Global Legal English, the company that created the program and which is located in Durham, England.

Chelsea Legal English is an Authorized TOLES Center. In recent months, Global Legal English has recognized the company’s success rate by promoting it to the category of one of the most active and successful Authorized TOLES Centers in the world.


The TOLES Foundation Exam focuses on the linguistic precision required by lawyers in today's world. That is, precision in two areas: technical legal vocabulary and grammar.

The areas covered are vocabulary of contracts, legal documents, financial documents and terminology from other areas.

The goal is to ensure that students are equipped with a solid foundation on which to build the skills required by employers. The materials ensure that students succeed and do not make the common mistake of trying more advanced tasks before mastering the basics.

The TOLES Higher Exam builds on language skills and knowledge of practical legal vocabulary acquired at the Foundation level.

This level requires the ability to deal with authentic legal documents and more complex scenarios, while continuing to focus on grammatical accuracy.

The TOLES Advanced Exam was created and developed in conjunction with the leading law firms in the world and is considered the most prestigious examination of legal English or the "gold standard".

It focuses on the vocabulary and grammar required to produce contracts and legal documents. It also encourages knowledge of English in general and the preferred style of the most prestigious law firms and courts.


The TOLES Professional Certificate is a new legal English certification for busy international lawyers. It’s a quick and very straightforward test that’s very easy to take online at a time that is convenient to you.

TOLES Professional is a certificate for lawyers who would like validation of their legal English knowledge, and only want to show their expertise in the areas of law that are relevant in the modern corporate office.

The exam focuses on the following areas: CLIENT, CONTRACT, CORPORATE, NEGOTIATION & ADR and CASE STUDIES.

The new test contains several new types of question that do not appear in other TOLES exams, including:

• Speaking – read aloud the sentence you see on the screen
• Speaking – briefly explain an aspect of your legal system in English
• Audio – write down the sentence you hear a lawyer saying
• Reading – find a word/phrase in the details of the case with a certain definition
• Vocabulary – supply the missing word in the sentence

The TOLES professional test is NOT a replacement for the TOLES Advanced exam. The level of TOLES Professional is between the TOLES Higher and the TOLES Advanced exam.

EXAMINATIONS

Each year there are 6 dates for TOLES examinations. These dates are assigned by Global Legal English and exams are applied on the same day in every Authorized TOLES Center in the world.

The exams are online and hosted on a secure platform, and are carefully ‘proctored’, which means that candidates are observed during the exam via their laptop camera and are also recorded. These recordings are checked after each exam session to ensure that strict exam conditions have been met.

Chelsea Legal English is an Authorized TOLES Center. Exams are online.

The certificates are sent to Chelsea Legal English and are delivered individually to the students.

The exam dates for 2024 are the following:

• 21 March 2024
• 23 May 2024
• 27 June 2024
• 22 August 2024
• 21 November 2024