How will the SQE promote diversity?

[JohanGRK]

Been reading up about the SQE in the past few days. It has been claimed that one of the benefits of the SQE is widening access to the profession, but it doesn't seem like this is the case? I was hoping for some further insight/thoughts from the kind people of TCLA in case I'm missing something...


The alleged benefits of the SQE in widening access to the profession are the following:

1. Lower cost (reducing need for high interest loans to be taken out by those without parental support)
   
   
2. Uniformity across the country (ending alleged LPC provider snobbery?)
   
   
3. Harder exam with lower pass rates, enabling firms to stop looking at A-level and university grades
   
   
4. Added flexibility on how a candidate accumulates their qualifying work experience, as it can be completed through up to four stints at four different employers, instead of a single 2-year training contract
   
   
5. Because the SQE is a single exam with a single question bank, the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) will find it easier to collect data on candidates’ background and results, informing future diversity-promoting policies
   

However, I cannot help but think that these benefits are nowhere near as great as they’re made out to be?

1. The SQE obviously does nothing to change the competitive nature of entering into the profession, with applications vastly exceeding training contract offers.
   
   
2. I’ve never heard of a firm turn anyway down because of where they did their LPC.
   
   
3. I highly doubt that the law firms that hire predominantly Firsts and 2.1s from leading universities are going to suddenly find the SQE to be an acceptable replacement for academic rigour. Also, while we obviously haven’t seen pass rates for that exam, it doesn’t exactly seem like a rigorous one to begin with, given the lack of a written component, the duration, etc. My personal opinion is that a sector-wide move away from caring about grades and where you studied is the way forward when it comes to diversity, SQE or no SQE.
   
   
4. The cost of the SQE prep course is still going to be £11,000 at Kaplan (£7,000 for prep course, £4,000 for the exam). The cost obviously goes up for weaker candidates who have to resit. That’s only £6,000 away from the most expensive LPC courses at BPP/ULaw in London. And there are many LPC courses that currently cost a lot less (e.g. City Law School in London costs £14,000; the University of Westminster is £9,000). Regional LPC courses are currently also much cheaper, so I can’t see the final price difference being that great. And keep in mind that some of the difference will come through compromise to course quality (e.g. BPP is not going to provide hard copy textbooks to its SQE students).
   
   
5. I don’t see how the ability to do four stints of qualifying work experience will help those without a training contract break into the larger/more selective firms, which are the ones we should ideally be making more diverse. Won’t law firms turn up their nose at someone with bits and pieces of work experience, particularly when most of it is dissimilar to that done by trainees at that firm? Won’t law firms continue offering their trainees NQ roles in priority to external applicants who did not train at the firm?
   
   
6. The SQE likely won’t stop underrepresented groups from ‘self-selecting’ out of ‘elite’ parts of the profession, given that this self-selection is caused by firms’ general reputation, their high academic requirements, and the various verbal reasoning tests they chuck at you.

Would appreciate any thoughts/comments!

 

[Jessica Booker]

The above is very focused on the top end of the market (obviously where most of our members' interests are).

The benefit for the SQE is actually for the majority of the legal market - the non-commercial top-tier firms where the vast majority of TCs lie, and also where more opportunities will become obvious given the changes (due to the lack of regulation on employers which is currently in place). Most of what you have listed above only applies to about 60-80 firms. There are over 10,000 firms in England and Wales.

I thought Kaplan aren't able to offer prep courses where they are the exam provider. Have you got a link to Kaplan's course?

 

[Jessica Booker]

The thing about the SQE was it was not really about diversity, it was mainly about ensuring there was one qualification system.

Apprenticeships had been launched with the first qualification date of 2020/1, there was the QLTS and the equivalent means qualification process that all had inconsistencies, and then obviously the traditional training contract. They had to bring together a process that would allow the end assessment point to bring qualification parity (even if employers didn't see it that way).

Whilst transitioning to one consistent method, they had invested a lot of time into thinking about diversity - but to be frank this has been lost in the realities of how it is being delivered as things have developed/changed. The SRA failed to listen to a lot of people about their concerns (academics, employers, trainers, students), and hung on to very specific things stubbornly, and also got influenced too heavily on others.

The new system is really open to abuse given the lack of employer regulation and also the fact now that work experience can be unpaid. That's my biggest bug bear of the new system. Technically someone could now do an unpaid training contract for 2 years. At least in the past they would have been subject to minimum wage at least...

 

[JohanGRK]

The above is very focused on the top end of the market (obviously where most of our members' interests are).

The benefit for the SQE is actually for the majority of the legal market - the non-commercial top-tier firms where the vast majority of TCs lie, and also where more opportunities will become obvious given the changes (due to the lack of regulation on employers which is currently in place). Most of what you have listed above only applies to about 60-80 firms. There are over 10,000 firms in England and Wales.

I thought Kaplan aren't able to offer prep courses where they are the exam provider. Have you got a link to Kaplan's course?

The link I had bookmarked for this no longer works... so I'm guessing that whoever gave the "£11k @ Kaplan" figure realised that it was wrong. My bad.

I came up with two more arguments about diversity:

1. Lack of need to do GDL + LPC --> lowering the cost by £9k + living costs for non-law students trying to break into the profession (as well as career changers)
2. No need to do multiple distinct seats during period of qualifying work experience - possibly allowing the smallest firms to train someone in just one area without having to do a seat-sharing arrangement with their rivals?

Out of curiosity, can you think of any diversity-specific benefits for the majority of the legal market that wouldn't apply to the larger commercial law firms?

 

[JohanGRK]

The thing about the SQE was it was not really about diversity, it was mainly about ensuring there was one qualification system.

Apprenticeships had been launched with the first qualification date of 2020/1, there was the QLTS and the equivalent means qualification process that all had inconsistencies, and then obviously the traditional training contract. They had to bring together a process that would allow the end assessment point to bring qualification parity (even if employers didn't see it that way).

Whilst transitioning to one consistent method, they had invested a lot of time into thinking about diversity - but to be frank this has been lost in the realities of how it is being delivered as things have developed/changed. The SRA failed to listen to a lot of people about their concerns (academics, employers, trainers, students), and hung on to very specific things stubbornly, and also got influenced too heavily on others.

The new system is really open to abuse given the lack of employer regulation and also the fact now that work experience can be unpaid. That's my biggest bug bear of the new system. Technically someone could now do an unpaid training contract for 2 years. At least in the past they would have been subject to minimum wage at least...

Interesting post, thank you

The SRA and others were making quite a fuss about diversity as late as July this year, which is probably to be expected (https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/press/sqe-for-diversity/). Though I would hope that they would be genuine about it instead of using it as a marketing/PR stunt, given what's at stake.

 

[Jessica Booker]

The link I had bookmarked for this no longer works... so I'm guessing that whoever gave the "£11k @ Kaplan" figure realised that it was wrong. My bad.

I came up with two more arguments about diversity:

1. Lack of need to do GDL + LPC --> lowering the cost by £9k + living costs for non-law students trying to break into the profession (as well as career changers)
2. No need to do multiple distinct seats during period of qualifying work experience - possibly allowing the smallest firms to train someone in just one area without having to do a seat-sharing arrangement with their rivals?

Out of curiosity, can you think of any diversity-specific benefits for the majority of the legal market that wouldn't apply to the larger commercial law firms?

Sorry long post due to geeking out about this....

No worries! I knew a bit about the tender process for the SQE assessments and to ensure there was some integrity it was explicitly stated by the SRA that the the company awarded it wouldn't be able to provide prep courses.

1) The non-law diversity point is a key one. All the time careers advice in schools is unequal (and in many state schools woeful), there is a real advantage of making the conversion process less time heavy, which in turn means it means there is less of an opportunity cost to it - not just the financial costs of the course itself.

Diversity in non-law grads in the legal sector is known to be pretty awful. Diverse candidates tend to come from law degrees much more easily given the heavy investment in things like the Sutton Trust, and the much higher levels of diversity in law undergraduate cohorts. Non-law trainees tend to be much more likely to be white, middle-class, from the Home Counties, and privately educated. Sorry to anyone this may not apply to! There was also a really bad reputation of the non-law applicants being the ones who chose a degree course that was much easier to get into/perceived to be easier at a top uni because they were the bright but a lazy sixth form student (this would apply to me ) and because they had been told by the privately educated network that you could do a non-law degree and still become a lawyer (not me). Many people who haven't had good careers advice still think to be a lawyer you have to do a law degree at undergrad (like medicine/dentistry).

Until the GDL and LPC become MAs/LLMs, this was even worse as generally the Bank of Mum & Dad had to fund GDL and LPC courses of those who did self-fund. I think many people would be surprised how many non-law grads secure their TCs when they have just started the GDL, so by default again that group are even less diverse than the general non-law applicant pool.

2) Exactly - it does open up opportunities because employing trainees just got A LOT easier - no training principal needed, no three areas of law needed, no sign off needed, no PSC needed. Although this will impact small firms (and in-house legal teams) more, I think this also applies to larger firms too. For example, the Indian desk in London at a MC firm can now recruit their own trainee and they don't have to rotate around other departments. The partner can choose to recruit someone with very specific experience/skill set relevant to their team (languages/connections to India), rather than having to pick and choose from a trainee cohort that have been recruited for the firm more generally. For some of the more niche departments with specific requirements (IP, International Arbitration, ACT) they may choose to take their own trainees rather than through a centralised graduate recruitment process. This is what happens in Investment Banking with "off-cycle" intern and grad hires.

You have to remember, the vast majority of training contracts are completed by people who self-fund. Sponsorship of the LPC represents probably no more than 30-40% of the training contracts out there. Now people will be able to start a "training contract" without even starting a course - for the law that isn't as complex as some of the major players in the city, do you really need to have done a course that costs upwards of £12k to do basic probate/real estate documents? Could this not be learnt on the job? I think this is the major difference for the big commercial firms - their work is so complex/complicated they need the training ahead of someone starting, hence why they are investing into these prep courses with BPP and the like. But that's an extreme of the market (just the most vocal where it has the most money).

Many people will be able to now join a firm straight out of uni and undertake SQE 1 and SQE 2 during their training contract - as seen with Kennedys. This is how so many professions actually work (Finance, Investment Banking, Real Estate, Accountancy) that maybe in another decade even the top law firms will realise they could move to this model. The legal sector is just rubbish at risk taking and they still think that getting anyone in without the equivalent of the GDL/LPC is risky

 

[JohanGRK]

Sorry long post due to geeking out about this....

No worries! I knew a bit about the tender process for the SQE assessments and to ensure there was some integrity it was explicitly stated by the SRA that the the company awarded it wouldn't be able to provide prep courses.

1) The non-law diversity point is a key one. All the time careers advice in schools is unequal (and in many state schools woeful), there is a real advantage of making the conversion process less time heavy, which in turn means it means there is less of an opportunity cost to it - not just the financial costs of the course itself.

Diversity in non-law grads in the legal sector is known to be pretty awful. Diverse candidates tend to come from law degrees much more easily given the heavy investment in things like the Sutton Trust, and the much higher levels of diversity in law undergraduate cohorts. Non-law trainees tend to be much more likely to be white, middle-class, from the Home Counties, and privately educated. Sorry to anyone this may not apply to! There was also a really bad reputation of the non-law applicants being the ones who chose a degree course that was much easier to get into/perceived to be easier at a top uni because they were the bright but a lazy sixth form student (this would apply to me ) and because they had been told by the privately educated network that you could do a non-law degree and still become a lawyer (not me). Many people who haven't had good careers advice still think to be a lawyer you have to do a law degree at undergrad (like medicine/dentistry).

Until the GDL and LPC become MAs/LLMs, this was even worse as generally the Bank of Mum & Dad had to fund GDL and LPC courses of those who did self-fund. I think many people would be surprised how many non-law grads secure their TCs when they have just started the GDL, so by default again that group are even less diverse than the general non-law applicant pool.

2) Exactly - it does open up opportunities because employing trainees just got A LOT easier - no training principal needed, no three areas of law needed, no sign off needed, no PSC needed. Although this will impact small firms (and in-house legal teams) more, I think this also applies to larger firms too. For example, the Indian desk in London at a MC firm can now recruit their own trainee and they don't have to rotate around other departments. The partner can choose to recruit someone with very specific experience/skill set relevant to their team (languages/connections to India), rather than having to pick and choose from a trainee cohort that have been recruited for the firm more generally. For some of the more niche departments with specific requirements (IP, International Arbitration, ACT) they may choose to take their own trainees rather than through a centralised graduate recruitment process. This is what happens in Investment Banking with "off-cycle" intern and grad hires.

You have to remember, the vast majority of training contracts are completed by people who self-fund. Sponsorship of the LPC represents probably no more than 30-40% of the training contracts out there. Now people will be able to start a "training contract" without even starting a course - for the law that isn't as complex as some of the major players in the city, do you really need to have done a course that costs upwards of £12k to do basic probate/real estate documents? Could this not be learnt on the job? I think this is the major difference for the big commercial firms - their work is so complex/complicated they need the training ahead of someone starting, hence why they are investing into these prep courses with BPP and the like. But that's an extreme of the market (just the most vocal where it has the most money).

Many people will be able to now join a firm straight out of uni and undertake SQE 1 and SQE 2 during their training contract - as seen with Kennedys. This is how so many professions actually work (Finance, Investment Banking, Real Estate, Accountancy) that maybe in another decade even the top law firms will realise they could move to this model. The legal sector is just rubbish at risk taking and they still think that getting anyone in without the equivalent of the GDL/LPC is risky

Thanks for the detailed reply!