The Solicitors Qualifying Examination: Perspectives on the Proposed Changes to Legal Qualification

Executive summary Legal education and training are fields characterised by uncertainty, containing major data gaps and research unknowns. This report suggests that the Solicitor Regulation Authority’s July 2020 application to the Legal Services Board for approval is premature, particularly in its lack of completed guidance on SQE2 and qualifying work experience (QWE) as well as its lack of evidence on the acknowledged attainment gaps use of informal networks in legal recruitment. The SQE proposals lack an evidence base demonstrating how the changes will improve longstanding problems with diversity in the legal profession. This research project underpinning this report, The Solicitors Qualifying Examination: Perspectives on the Proposed Changes to Legal Qualification, drew on desk-based studies of legal and policy materials, supplemented with responses to a survey. The report is designed to demonstrate how socio-legal studies, which are completely omitted from the SQE proposals, provide valuable contextual analysis in legal research and study, developing key skills for students and aspiring solicitors. Respondents who took part in our survey, who told us they had a good understanding of SQE plans, highlighted a range of detailed questions about the implications of the proposals as currently formulated. These comments have underscored our view that despite the SQE’s undoubted progressive potential, it is an education and training experiment with possibly serious implications for quality, cost and diversity. However, if SQE plans are to be approved, it is vital that a gentler introduction is implemented, with slower phasing out of the current route to enable time for clarification of some of the key aspects of the proposals. We suggest the following next steps: - Wait for more details on SQE2 sample questions, marking and moderation; - Wait for more details on QWE including how many weekly hours are required (particularly when undertaken voluntarily and/or on a part-time basis); - Require an analysis of the social security (universal credit) rules and employment law framework for internships to assist both aspiring solicitors and organisations; - Require evidence on how informal recruitment networks operate in the legal profession and how these might be ameliorated with the introduction of the QWE, perhaps in collaboration with the Sutton Trust; - Require a detailed pilot study of SQE1 and SQE2 with those solicitors’ apprentices finishing in 2021-22, allowing a more extensive analysis of SQE assessment processes; - Require the release of the raw data for the SQE1 and SQE2 pilots. The SRA have acknowledged an attainment gap in SQE assessments and the LSB should require more evidence that the SQE will not exacerbate existing inequalities; - Require analysis of the SRA’s experience with the equivalent means route of qualification, including data on protected characteristics for applicants; - Confirm data gaps for the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/Common Professional Exam (CPE), Legal Practice Course (LPC) and training contracts as well as for the SQE and QWE. Data on aspiring solicitors should include markers of both protected characteristics and other aspects of concern, including first in family to attend university, history of free school meals, type of school attended for GCSE & ‘A’ levels, ethnicity, gender and disability. Without further refinement the SQE risks making signifiers of ability (educational establishments, social networks, identity, location and nature of work experience) even more influential in the solicitors’ profession than they are today.