The SRA is pressing on with plans for the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE), to launch in 2021.

It means that the Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course will no longer be required to qualify as a solicitor and will be phased out.

But what does it mean for you? Here’s what we know at the moment…

I’m currently on a law degree… will I have to take the super-exam?

Not if you don’t want to. If you start a law degree before August 2021, you’ll be able to choose whether to train via the old route or do the SQE. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is preparing for a long period of transition so it will be up to you.

If you start a law degree after 2021, you WILL have to go down the SQE route.

I’m currently on the GDL… will I have to take the super-exam?

Again, no. Anyone currently on the existing postgraduate law courses won’t be forced to take the SQE and can qualify via the ‘traditional’ route.

I’m currently on the Legal Practice Course… will I have to take the super-exam?

Are you even listening? No!

Basically, this long transition period means that anyone who starts the GDL or LPC while they still exist should be able to go through the old, non-super-exam, process.

Okay, I’m going to start an undergraduate law degree after September 2020. Will my course be any different because of this super-exam?

Maybe.

The super-exam will test things that aren’t currently taught on a law degree. It is likely that some universities will change the content of their degrees to prepare their students to take the first part of the SQE (which, remember, is split into two).

Equally, a law degree has traditionally been a liberal arts degree, not a vocational one designed to turn you into a lawyer. A lot of academics think it should stay that way. So it’s also likely that some universities will keep their law degrees more or less as they are now.

Our guess: students applying to university after 2021 will have to look carefully at the content of the law course, to see if it is more of a ‘vocational’ one or a ‘traditional’ one, and then decide which sort they want to do.

Will I need a degree at all to become a lawyer?

Yep. You’ll need a degree “or equivalent” qualification. But there are new ways to ‘earn while you learn’, like apprenticeships, that will allow you to qualify without going to uni in the traditional way.

So if the LPC is going to disappear, what happens to all the stuff you learn on it?

You’ll still learn it, just in different places. Some of it may well be incorporated into undergraduate law degrees, as we just mentioned.

Law schools will also start to run SQE preparation courses to equip students with the skills to pass the first part of the exam. BPP has already won the contract to educate future trainees for six City giants, beginning in 2020.

I’m a non-law undergrad who wants to become a solicitor… what does this mean for me?

If you start the GDL before 2021, you’ll have the option to go through the ‘old’ route for non-lawyers.

Otherwise, after finishing your lovely non-law degree, you’ll be able to take the SQE Part One and apply for legal work experience just like law graduates.

You’ll probably want to take one of those preparation courses that don’t exist yet but will inevitably spring up to get you up to speed. Many of those courses may well look similar to the GDL. For example, BPP has announced one for non-law students starting in 2020.

You keep mentioning ‘SQE Parts One and Two’. What’s that all about?

So you’ll have to pass Part One of the super-exam before you can take Part Two.

The SRA says Part One will be relatively cheap to take. The idea is that those who fail it won’t then go on to take the more expensive Part Two – thus weeding out the no-hopers before they spend huge amounts of money.

What happens to the training contract?

The SRA says that to qualify, you’ll still have to do two years of work experience – the length a training contract is now. For the big City firms, it looks like the training contract (or period of recognised training if we’re being precise) is here to stay.

However, the training contract won’t be the only way you can gain work experience.

The SRA says experience in up to four different organisations will count towards qualifying. So, for instance, you could do six months working for your university law clinic, then 18 months as a paralegal in a law firm. That would potentially count as your two years of work experience – so long as you had fulfilled all the SRA’s requirements in that time.

Some training contracts may well change a bit though. The SRA will no longer require trainees to get experience in three different areas of law. Nor will you have to have experience of both contentious and non-contentious work.

Frankly, it’s unlikely that the large firms will suddenly want to do away with their beloved seat rotation systems, but theoretically it’s possible.

And you can see how theoretically, a small American firm in London that concentrates heavily on finance, or an IP boutique, or a high-street firm that solely does conveyancing, might not want to bother with giving trainees experience in several areas of law.

Do I have to pass SQE Part 1 before I get work experience?

Not necessarily.

The only rules as far as timing is concerned are you will have to pass Part One of the SQE before you take Part Two.

So you could accumulate work experience before and/or after taking SQE Part One.

What will SQE Part One test?

It looks likely that there will be six ‘functioning legal knowledge’ assessments covering…

  1. Principles of professional conduct, public and administrative law and the legal systems of England and Wales
  2. Dispute resolution in contract or tort
  3. Property law and practice
  4. Commercial and corporate law and practice
  5. Wills and the administration of estates and trusts
  6. Criminal law and practice

Then there will also be a practical legal skills assessment, testing your legal research and writing skills.

And what about SQE Part 2?

Lots of hard stuff, says the SRA. It’s still a long way off before anyone actually has to sit down and take this exam but broadly speaking, there will be practical legal skills assessments covering things like legal drafting, client interviewing, advocacy, legal research and written advice, and case and matter analysis.

Try not to stress too much about it just yet though – you do have a long time to revise.

Who’s going to be running the super-exam?

Kaplan has won the contract for the first eight years.

Wait… what about the University of Law and BPP? The LPC and GDL were like the geese that laid golden eggs for them – what are they going to do?

It’s nice of you to think of those guys. But as SRA executive director Crispin Passmore has sagely said: “We are not in the business of producing geese, golden or otherwise.”

He went on to add that the training reforms are a brilliant opportunity for forward-thinking law schools to work with the SRA and law firms and produce lots of exciting new preparation courses for SQE Parts One and Two. That’s pretty much what will happen. City firms already run bespoke LPCs with BPP and ULaw. No doubt they will still want tailored courses in the future – the reforms give law firms the chance to be even more flexible in what they put their trainees through.

It is, of course, in law schools’ interests to keep the new system as similar as possible to the old one, so expect plenty of lobbying on that score…

How much is all this going to cost? I’m as poor as a squirrel without any nuts.

The SRA says the new way of training will be cheaper than the old one.

Law school chief Peter Crisp argued in 2016 that “the cost of qualification may well soar: the degree, plus some sort of LPC-style training, plus electives, plus crammer courses for the SQE, plus the cost of the SQE itself.”

“A cost in the region of £3,000 or £4,000 [for the SQE alone] would seem to be a minimum to me because Part Two is a very expensive process.”

Crisp’s prediction as come true – as far as the cost of the exam is concerned, at least. The SRA’s indicative fees suggest Parts One and Two together could cost between £3,000 and £4,500. Part One of the exam might cost between £1,100 and £1,650, the SRA estimates, while the indicative fee range for Part Two is between £1,900 and £2,850.

Of course, by the time solicitor-hopefuls reach Part Two, they will be on the brink of qualifying and you would imagine those who don’t have a chance of making it as a solicitor will already have been weeded out of the process.

Apart from having a degree, and two years relevant work experience, and passing the SQE Parts One and Two, will I need to do anything else to become a solicitor?

You’ll need to pass the SRA’s ‘character and suitability’ test. So no thieving, bribing, assaulting, plagarising, murdering or defrauding, please. Best just to behave yourself.

Got more questions? Let us know in the comments and we’ll do our best to answer.