News focus: SQE has disrupted the training market - but confused it, too

The Solicitors Qualifying Examination was introduced in 2021 to develop diverse pathways to qualification that are responsive to the changing legal services market. While it has positively disrupted the market, a conference heard this week that it has confused it, too.

‘We’re having to support our students a lot more,’ James Catchpole, associate dean at The City Law School told the Westminster Legal Policy Forum event. ‘The students coming through do not fully understand what they need to be doing at the moment. There are now a multitude of routes in.’

To qualify as a solicitor, candidates must pass two sets of SQE assessments that test functioning legal knowledge and practical legal skills, and complete two years of qualifying work experience.

Solicitor Dana Denis-Smith, founder of the Next 100 Years Project, worries aspiring lawyers are seeing SQE as the ‘end point’.

‘They do no look beyond the exams because they are so confused about what is happening – how to pass the SQE, how to get through this stage as opposed to what is the meaning of law, why do you want to practise,’ she said. ‘We’re still having situations, just like with the Legal Practice Course – people would embark on the LPC with no career progression in sight. It has simply transferred to the SQE.

‘Are we selling these people something that’s not going to deliver for them as future lawyers of the profession? People coming through do not understand what’s beyond the SQE exam stage and how do you practise a whole life career in the law.’

Many others present agreed.

One commented on the ‘wide bridge between education and employers, what we need as aspiring professionals and what employers expect. The fact that many either don’t know about the differing and more inclusive pathways or have a disregard for the new pathways needs to be bridged’.

Another said: ‘With regard to inclusion, more work needs to be done to educate those in education and their students in understanding the accessible pathways now open. Apprenticeships aren’t solely tailored for 16-year-olds, but I am not sure that students, their parents, their educators are fully aware of what young people can access.’

Career planning

Another highlighted the need for a ‘huge education and communication piece to help aspiring solicitors focus on what is best for their long-term career, alongside what they need to do to pass the new assessments’.

One suggestion that emerged from the conference is a mapping exercise.

A helpful example was provided by CILEX chief executive Linda Ford during a session on the new T-level in legal services, which set out progression routes from T-level to CILEX lawyer.

CILEX, the representative body for 20,000 legal professionals, has also mapped out career roles and education routes, jobs people can do in association, the skills required for each job, and what pathways will lead to that job.

Meanwhile, the Government Legal Department is developing a GLD legal learning framework. Ruth Ward, GLD director of knowledge, said the department ‘is making sense of the training that’s available at whatever stage of your career’.

The framework will help all the different lawyers across GLD understand core training opportunities, the skills available to them throughout their career and the learning pathways ahead.

People are already keen to get involved.

An attendee from HM Courts & Tribunals Service said: ‘Within HMCTS we recruit around 100 legal advisers a year from all professional qualifications to advise magistrates and undertake other quasi-judicial functions, so would be keen to be included in the mapping of skills and work versus the various professional statements. It is unnecessarily complex that our lawyers who carry out the same roles are looking at different competences and standards.’

Employers also have an important role to play.

The City Law School’s Catchpole said: ‘Students need to be able to engage with employers. Come talk to them. Students need to be encouraged to know what their options are, what do they want to be in life.’

One attendee asked about employer appetite to support the full requirements of training. ‘Is the industry expecting too many people to be job-ready and not fully immersing the whole process from grass roots to competence?’

So far, more than 7,000 people have completed at least one SQE assessment. Hundreds are sitting exams this month. What happens next in their chosen careers cannot be left to them alone to figure out.

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