Forthcoming super-exam for solicitors?

Jan 05, 2016

Written By Jack J Collins, Editor, AllAboutLaw.co.uk

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has today proposed a new, final exam for every solicitor before their final qualification. The Solicitors Qualifying Examination, as it will be known, has been in the pipeline for a while, but today the SRA officially opened proposals to make it a reality.

The exam is rumoured to be a two-part competency assessment, one for knowledge and one for skills, which could possibly be spread out over a longer period of time. It has been suggested by Julie Brannan, SRA’s director of education and training, that an aspiring solicitor may be able to take the knowledge test whilst still at University and then wait until the end of their training contract before taking the skills part.

It also may mean that no longer would everyone be required to take the LPC, integrating academic, professional and work-based teaching into a more dynamic system that allowed students to gain experience of working in a law firm alongside learning the academic principles of the discipline.

Brannan went on to say that, “At the moment, students are usually introduced to cases on contract law in their first year of their undergraduate degree but don’t see a contract for the first time until the LPC three years later. I haven’t yet come across anyone yet who thinks that’s a good way of teaching.”

It would not, however, spell the end of the training contract as an idea, because part of the consultation plans is a system that retains the pre-qualification work-based training requirement, which the SRA feel is one of the distinguishing features of the English and Welsh legal system, and one which has impacted it in a positive way.

The first consultation is now under scrutiny from the profession, and should it prove positive and successful, a second consultation will take place in 2016 to determine the different pathways to qualification.

However, changes are not going to come into effect until the 2018/19 academic year at the very earliest, due to the stringent requirements on the process being absolutely perfect.

The SRA Chief Executive, Paul Philip, stated: "We think that the best way to ensure that solicitors meet the standards we, their clients and the public expect is to put in place the same, rigorous assessment for aspiring solicitors. That will give real confidence to employers, the users of legal services and indeed the profession itself."

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