The SRA: Master or meddler of legal education?

This week the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) revealed its plans to shake up the legal education market. Under the proposals, those wanting to qualify as a solicitor will have to undergo the same professional assessment based on the 'competences required to do the job'.

The new super exam - uninspiringly named the solicitors qualifying examination (SQE) - is based on the competence statement developed by the SRA.

The regulator believes the changes will ensure consistent high standards of entry into the profession, which in turn will give confidence to the public and employers, as well as help to foster greater diversity.

In theory, the new exam would do away with the current 'tri-partite' stages of academic, professional, and workplace training currently imposed on students. However, providers of undergraduate law degrees and the graduate diploma in law (GDL) will likely survive the reforms unscathed, while peddlers of the exorbitantly priced legal practice course (LPC) may be nervously shifting their feet.

Speaking at the Westminster Legal Policy Forum conference this week, Professor Rebecca Huxley-Binns, chair of the Association of Law Teachers, said the proposals were 'nothing new' and that budding solicitors will still need vocational (the LPC) and workplace training (training contract or apprenticeship) before sitting the new assessment.

The SRA's plans 'may' raise standards of entry, but it will not remedy the problems with legal education. Nevertheless, the regulator has made one thing clear: it is not its job to 'fix the market'. Yet it is the market that will decide whether the LPC remains a necessity. Many major firms are happy to maintain the status quo for their trainee recruitment, albeit with some tweaks, such as increased apprenticeships.

Also prompted by a strong reaction to the proposals, the Law Society has argued that the current two-year training contract is 'about right' and that the system is not 'fundamentally broken'.

It also claims that removal of approved pathways carries a risk of adversely affecting less-advantaged students who are without access to contacts in the profession and who would be unable to gain funding for courses they were no longer 'required' to complete.

Responding to the regulator's announcement, Helen Hudson, head of postgraduate professional courses at Nottingham Law School, said: 'If the SRA moves to a centralised assessment at the point of qualification, where does this leave us? The next phase of consultation is likely to centre around the abolition of prescribed routes to qualification, which may well leave students and employers at sea.'

Also speaking at the Westminster conference was Simon Hart, a partner and training principal at City firm RPC, who admitted to being concerned about the changes because 'anything that dilutes academic regard would be a worry for the profession'. He suggested that 'contextual recruitment' was a better way of improving diversity than opening up new pathways.

Anybody should have the opportunity to become a solicitor and no one should be left behind because of their personal circumstances. He also pointed out that every year the firm gets more and more disappointed applicants. 'We have to be careful not to encourage more school leavers only for them to end up disappointed,' he said.

The number of solicitor roles is not growing. The market for trainees is oversaturated and has been for years. The new proposals will do little to change that, but what of the future?

If the SQE does replace the LPC - and, if does, then hopefully for only a fraction of the price - and opens up the profession to greater diversity, then all is well and good. But if it merely becomes an additional exam that overloaded wannabe solicitors will have to face after six years of study and training, then all the SRA will have done is place another hurdle before qualification.

John van der Luit-Drummond is deputy editor for Solicitors Journal