New QLTS launched

The new test, Kaplan QLTS, will strengthen the procedures for assessing internationally qualified lawyers and lawyers qualified in the UK wanting to practise as solicitors in the UK, and will open up a route to admissions to those who have not previously been eligible to apply.

After a rigorous tender exercise last month, Kaplan QLTS was appointed sole assessment organisation to provide the QLTS assessments.  Now, lawyers wishing to transfer must show they have met the English language requirement.  The assessments, which will start in the new year, will include practical exercises replacing the previous Qualified Lawyers Transfer Regulation (QLTR) experience requirement.

Antony Townsend, the SRA’s chief executive, said: “The public need to have confidence in their solicitor wherever he or she may originally have qualified. This is the first fundamental change in the system of assessment of international lawyers for 20 years.”