Law lecturers slam Solicitors Qualifying Exam as damaging to diversity and equality in legal profession

The Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) will have a negative impact on students and academics, and represents a “step backwards” for diversity and equal access to careers in the legal profession, according to law lecturers.

Academics Luke Mason of Birmingham City University and Jessica Guth of Leeds Beckett University have said the SQE is unlikely to improve social mobility in the profession because it fails to address underlying inequalities which see candidates in more privileged circumstances access prestigious careers, while less-privileged candidates disproportionately lose out.

Writing in the journal for the Association of Law Teachers, they said: “While all solicitors will have to pass the SQE, the context in which they do so and the job prospects following the SQE are very, very different. In reality we suspect that almost nothing will change for students at Russell Group universities heading for magic circle firms. Instead of paying for the LPC, firms will pay for the SQE and will likely offer their own bespoke SQE training courses.

“Students attending a lower-ranked university undertaking an SQE-ready degree will not get any closer to a magic circle firm than they do now.

“In short, the SQE risks exacerbating inequality and is a step backwards for genuine diversity in the profession and perpetuates and potentially widens the split in the profession between high street and magic circle firms. What is worse, it does so by creating an illusion of equality.”

As Legal Futures reports, the two lecturers also accused the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) of using the new SQE to redefine the nature of law, or at least legal knowledge, itself”.

Mason and Beckett warned that the SQE does “significant violence to law as an academic discipline and to our colleagues and students”. They said: “The reason legal academics are so concerned is the same reason law firms are sceptical about the SQE: they do not think this exam will provide useful information about a prospective lawyer’s legal knowledge or ability to use, interpret or apply it”.