The Legal Cheek Podcast discusses the exam five years post roll-out
First introduced in 2021 as a way to democratise a historically inaccessible profession, the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) has had a rather bumpy ride, marred by controversies surrounding pass rates, exam difficulty and administrative errors. The SQE was supposed to be the antidote to an outdated system — so why has it struggled so much?
This week on The Legal Cheek Podcast, Julia Szaniszlo and Ryan Scott take a look at how the SQE came to be, the key differences it has to the LPC route, and why so many candidates have “lost confidence” in the exam. From the promise of flexible qualifying work experience to the reality of cut-throat TC conditions, a 41% all-time low pass rate, and the Kaplan grading scandal that saw 175 students wrongly told they had failed, we ask whether the SQE has truly opened up the profession or simply swapped one set of barriers for another.
You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
A self‑fulfilling prophecy, helped along by an industry that seems to prefer predicting an implosion to supporting a shift toward meritocracy.
That’s it, money.
Congratulations to the SRA on banking millions of pounds from the lowest (and already in debt) tier of the legal hierarchy.
Watching friends and colleagues lose their jobs over a 1 mark difference is depressing af.