We recently caught up with Jill-Howell Williams, the National Programme Director at The University of Law about the phase in of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).
Can you give us some background into your role at The University of Law?
I am the National Programme Director – Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), which means I am responsible for the design and delivery of the SQE preparation programmes at The University of Law. These programmes include innovative new training courses created to support students to qualify under the SQE regime.
I started my career in law as a dual qualified barrister and solicitor practising corporate law at a large City law firm.
After a number of years in practice, I decided to fulfil a lifelong ambition to become involved in education by joining the then College of Law (now The University of Law) as a tutor in business law and mergers and acquisitions. I have taught across almost every law programme including our vocational law and master’s programmes. I became campus dean at Moorgate in 2016 until I moved into my new SQE role in 2020.
I am very interested in the adoption of technology both in education and in the legal profession itself and launched the Moorgate Legal Tech and Innovation Hub and I jointly chair The University of Law’s Technology Research Academy (ULTRA). The use of technology, including our intelligent SQE revision app, is an essential part of my role in creating cutting edge educational programmes to ensure our students pass the SQE assessment at the first attempt.
You can find out more about The University of Law’s SQE app here.
Can you explain the SQE and some background into why & how it’s been phased in?
The SQE was introduced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) as a new, independent centralised assessment for all would-be solicitors who wish to qualify in England and Wales. It is intended to replace, ultimately, the current route to qualification through the prescribed Legal Practice Course (LPC) and training contract route.
Under the SQE route, all candidates must sit and pass the same assessments delivered by the SRA’s assessment provider Kaplan law school. The principal reasons for the introduction of the SQE were to create a level playing field, by having centralised assessments and to provide greater access to the profession by creating a route which many consider to be more flexible.
Unlike the LPC, there is no prescribed training course for these new SQE assessments (although law schools and training providers like The University of Law, will offer SQE preparation courses to students to get them ready for these assessments).
The SQE assessments are significantly different from those taken on the LPC. The SQE consists of two new assessments: SQE1 and SQE2. Put simply, the SQE1 assessments will test candidates’ functioning legal knowledge and the SQE2 assessments will test legal skills.
The SQE1 assessments consist of 360 multiple choice questions covering functioning legal knowledge (FLK) which is a mixture of academic law knowledge in the seven foundation subjects and vocational training knowledge in the practice areas of Business Law Practice, Dispute Resolution, Property Practice, Wills, Legal Services, Criminal Practice, Solicitors’ Accounts and Ethics. FLK is further defined by the SRA as being the application of knowledge of the law to demonstrate the competences required to the level of a newly qualified solicitor of England and Wales.
The SQE1 assessments are divided into two separate papers of 180 questions each. The questions are known as single best answer questions (SBAQs) where students will have to pick one answer from five options where more than one option could on the face of it be technically correct. The skill in answering this type of question is to understand the client’s requirements and pick the most correct answer.
The SQE2 assessments consist of 16 tasks in the legal skills of
- advocacy,
- interviewing and attendance note taking
- case and matter analysis
- legal writing,
- legal drafting
- legal research
These skills assessments are scenario-based assessments based in practice contexts from SQE1.
The oral skills of interviewing and advocacy take place in front of an assessor, whilst the written skills are completed as computer-based assessments, all under strictly timed conditions.
The LPC by contrast is assessed by more traditional problem-solving written questions, some multiple-choice assessments and five legal skills assessments in advocacy, interviewing, writing, drafting and legal research. Many assessments are open book and there is no direct assessment of academic law content.
What does the route to becoming a solicitor look like now and who does it affect?
To qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales under the SQE route students will need to
- pass both sets of SQE assessments,
- have a degree,
- undertake two years Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) and
- meet the SRA’s character and suitability requirements.
The SQE will eventually replace the former LPC/training contract route. The LPC will be phased out over the next ten years, as the SQE becomes the sole route to qualification. However, with such a lengthy transitional period, this means that some law students who have already started their law degrees on or before September 2021, have the option of taking either the LPC or the SQE route, at the moment. This is not the case for current non-law graduates and law graduates starting in September 2022, who now can only qualify using the SQE pathway.
What does The University of Law offer to help students prepare for the SQE?
At The University of Law, we have created a wide range of preparation courses: from courses for students who simply want to study for the SQE assessments or for those students who want to study on a programme that includes additional legal training and acquire a master’s degree award.
There are a number of knowledge and skills gaps in the SQE compared to the LPC route which many employers and students will want to plug by taking additional courses which form part of the master’s programmes.
All our courses will be delivered either purely online or through a blended course with face to face classroom-based teaching.
The pandemic has taught us two things:
- That students are social learners and still wish to study with their peers
And that we can
- Harness the best of technology both in and out of the classroom to create an adaptive and personalised learning journey for students.
The key features of our courses are as follows:
We have developed an amazing SQE1 revision app – this houses a huge practice assessment bank and uses predictive analytics to analyse our students’ progress and make sure they are on track to pass SQE1 successfully
- We have created a bespoke range of SQE manuals specifically written for both SQE1 and 2 aligned with the SRA’s assessment specification
- On our master’s programme we have embedded integrated additional content designed in collaboration with leading law firms and legal employers, to make sure our students have the right skills, knowledge and aptitudes for practice as a lawyer
- Our SQE courses are delivered through a simulated law firm – this means our students also being prepared for practice as well as the SQE assessments
- We provide extensive tutor support from our subject experts, whatever mode of delivery.
Any final pieces of advice or tips for Bright Network members interested in becoming a solicitor who will be doing the SQE?
My top tips for members and their approach to the SQE depends, at the moment, upon whether they are a law or non-law graduate.
Dealing with current non-law gradates first, who now must qualify using the SQE route, the main issue to consider is how you acquire the academic law knowledge (traditionally taught on a law degree or law conversion programme) which is assessed and forms 50% of the SQE syllabus.
The SRA no longer requires a law degree under the SQE route. This has led to a lot of confusion and misconceptions in the non-law student body.
As half the content of SQE is made up of academic law, we believe that some form of academic law training will be essential for non-law students to be ready for the SQE assessments and be able to pass successfully.
Also, acquisition of a solid understanding of academic law is important to most law firms and legal employers. From my many interactions with employers over past two years, the vast majority of them, recognise the importance of this stage of legal training.
There are now a variety of options for non-law graduates to acquire academic law knowledge, from conversion courses which cover this law in more depth to give equivalence to students with an LLB, or short academic law prep courses.
You can find out more about the SQE pathway for non-law graduates here.
For law graduates (who started on or before September 2021) the main consideration will be whether they select to qualify using the SQE or the LPC.
For students who choose to sit the SQE, they will have to complete two years QWE in order to qualify and so they will need to think about how they obtain that QWE. At the moment, a lot of law students will have already obtained some form of legal employment, which will count towards their QWE so the SQE will be an appropriate choice for them.
For prospective LPC students, they need to think about how they will obtain a training contract especially as many firms are phasing these out from 2024 onwards.
Another factor to take into account are fees. There are differences in the course fees between the LPC and SQE preparation courses and also students taking the SQE will pay additional assessment fees, payable to the SRA, in order to sit the SQE. These fees are currently £1,558 for SQE1 and £2,422 for SQE2 and rising in 2023.
Finally, the other key factor students are considering is the difference in how long it takes to study for the LPC and the SQE.
For all law graduates starting this September 2022 and who may only qualify under the SQE regime, my advice would be to remember that the SQE has created flexibility and there is no longer one size fits all. These students should consider the following questions:
- What are their career goals?
- How will they fund their SQE studies and assessments?
- How much time can they commit to studying and do they want to work alongside studying for the SQE?
- Have they thought about some of the interesting SQE graduate apprenticeship opportunities?
Keen to find out more? View their profile here.