Unfinished business

It's not so long ago that many in the profession were complaining about falling standards and trainees becoming solicitors overnight with little preparation for the real world of law. What we needed was an exit exam before we could reliably let newly qualified solicitors loose on clients. That would raise standards and restore trust in the profession.

Fast forward to Monday this week and the solicitors qualifying examination (SQE), the 'super-exam project' developed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) over the past year, has suddenly become less popular.

The regulator's initial proposals were '“ rightly '“ met with scepticism when they were first unveiled this summer. These revised proposals mark a significant improvement on the previous instalment but they have, again, failed to gain widespread support among stakeholders. Among education providers, some fear the new system will fail to deliver on diversity while others simply find them misconceived. As to lawyers, while some welcome the principle of lowering costs and barriers to entry, there are doubts whether this will make any difference in practice.

The SQE project is a strange mixture of old and new, of welcome flexibility and uncomfortable vagueness. Take Stage One, for instance, the academic stage of legal training meant to ensure that aspiring solicitors have acquired essential technical knowledge.

The contents look a bit like the graduate diploma in law (GDL), covering core practice areas including reserved activities. This is sound, and because it will be run centrally and will be computer based, it will be cheaper to administer and softer on candidates' pockets. So why not just make the GDL the compulsory point of entry '“ especially if, as currently planned, there will be no exemption for law graduates?

What's more, the SRA is candidly leaving it to the market to set up the courses and procedures that will prepare candidates to sit the Stage One assessment. Now, if you just look at what this has led to in relation to the cost of the GDL '“ not to mention the legal practice course (LPC) which can cost up to around £15,000 '“ you will probably start wondering whether the proposed approach will really lower barriers to access.

Then there is the Stage Two exam, which validates experience in practice following ten practical skills assessments. The SRA says the minimum requirement will likely be a 24 months' work-based training period which could take place before Stage One but which it expects will follow on from it.

Taken together, these two stages look awfully like the current system, but with the LPC exam at the end of the training contract. And because the SRA still anticipates that most firms will recruit via the traditional LPC route, it suddenly makes the whole thing quite confusing.

SQE started with laudable intentions and there are certainly some promising aspects that mustn't be ignored. In its current state, however, the proposals are adding what looks like an unnecessary layer to the present system. If it is to succeed, the SQE project must be turned on its head: clearly ditch the LPC altogether and make SQE the norm. Until this is done, SQE will remain unfinished business.

Jean-Yves Gilg is editor in chief of Solicitors Journal

Jean-yves.gilg@solicitorsjournal.co.uk | @jeanyvesgilg