Law teachers criticise SQE pilot over lack of information

The limited information published about the recent Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) stage one pilot means that it is “impossible” to tell whether the new ‘super exam’ will work as intended, the Association of Law Teachers (ALT) has warned.

Together with Kaplan, the organisation appointed to run the SQE, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) released its report on the SQE stage one pilot earlier in the summer. But the ALT, writing in the Law Gazette, said that a lack of statistics and the regulator’s decision to publish the report during the university summer break “might suggest a desire to avoid immediate scrutiny from the academic community”.

The ALT has argued that questions remain over how representative the 300 or so candidates who participated in the pilot were, as well as the report’s findings, due to a lack of data. “What is most significant about these reports is that none of them actually disclose important parts of the evidence on which they are based, which are fundamental to any critique or complaint,” it said.

The skills component of SQE stage one was found to disadvantage BAME candidates in the pilot, which remains a major cause of concern. “Given that the original purpose of the SQE was to widen access and participation, this is a very depressing finding that suggests the reproduction of privilege,” claimed the ALT. However, the SRA has indicated that the skills aspect of SQE stage one may be dropped altogether to eliminate bias against candidates from minority backgrounds.

The SQE is due to be introduced in September 2021, at which point all future solicitors will have to pass its stage one and stage two assessments in order to qualify.