Dr Morag Duffin, Director of Student Success, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at ULaw, reflects on the findings around minority group performance under the new assessment regime
In 2021 the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) began the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) with two initial primary objectives. Firstly, greater assurance of consistent, high standards at the point of admission. Secondly, the development of new and diverse pathways to qualification to promote a diverse profession by removing artificial and unjustifiable barriers.
Since the first SRA publication of SQE results by demographic groups, the legal sector (including the SRA itself) has grown increasingly concerned about the pass rate trends for certain demographic groups. Of particular concern is the pass rate gap (or using SRA terminology ‘differential outcomes by ethnicity’) between White students and students from minoritised ethnicities.
Over the five sittings of SQE1 from Jan 2023 to Jan 2025, the differences in pass rates – or ‘pass rate gaps’ – between White students and students from minoritised ethnicities have been substantial and persistent. The pass rate gap between Asian and White students has varied between 16 and 21 percentage points, the Black/White gap between 29 and 34 percentage points, Mixed/White gap between 5 and 12 percentage points and the Other/White gap between 15 and 26 percentage points.
This trend is also seen in the six SQE2 sittings from April 2023 to October 2024, although the variation in gap is much larger: the Asian/White pass rate gap varied between 11 and 19 percentage points, the Black/White gap between 14 and 57 percentage points, the Mixed/White gap between 0 and 11 percentage points and the Other/White gap between 4 and 35 percentage points.
These gaps aren’t too different from the Legal Practice Course. In 2018-19 the pass rate gap for all legal education providers between Asian and White students was 19% and between Black and White students it was 32%. The redesign of the qualification route was however intended to address these issues and widen access to the profession.
The SQE assessment, as described by the SRA, is a ‘rigorous’ assessment designed to ‘assure consistent, high standards for all qualifying solicitors’. On the face of it, the pass rate data is therefore suggesting that students from minoritised ethnic groups just aren’t good enough to be solicitors.
This is why it is so important to understand why there is an SQE ethnicity pass rate gap for both SQE1 and SQE2. Are the gaps due to the external factors that the University of Exeter identified in the previous legal professional assessments (the Legal Practice Course) in its 2024 research report on ‘Potential causes of differential outcomes by ethnicity in legal professional assessments’:
- social economic background: lack of time and resources, experience of discrimination and bias, and the influence of these on confidence and exam preparedness
- school and university outcomes: differences in A-level outcomes, awarding gaps at
university level, and challenges in education before university - fitting in and support: lack of a sense of belonging, lack of access to appropriate
support, and lack of representation and diversity of staff - access to legal work experience: lack of access to legal work, training opportunities and
sponsorship, recruitment processes that do not consider context, and lack of contacts
in the profession.
Is it the additional factors that the University of Exeter research identifies in its 2024 Qualitative Interview Insight Report, for instance discrimination and bias beyond socio-economic background and institutional or professional culture? Or is there also a role that the assessment method and the SQE preparation courses play in these gaps? These questions remain to be answered, and the SRA is currently working on analysing the SQE data to help understand this more.
But the fact is, there is a gap.
What we are most concerned about at ULaw is the impact that the knowledge of this gap is having on our students, particularly those from minoritised ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to understanding what we can do as a legal education provider to support our students, and more importantly what role we as a provider could be playing in the creation of these gaps and what we can and must do to change.
We spoke with our students to find out their thoughts about the pass rate gaps. I was surprised to find out that not all students were aware of the pass rate gaps. I mean, why should they be? They are too busy with their studies, paid work and life commitments to be reading statistical analysis reports from the SRA. But when we made our students aware of them, all the students we spoke with were concerned and uncomfortable, but also sadly unsurprised.
As one undergraduate law student commented:
“…the breakdown of pass rates would discourage me from taking an SQE course. Whilst the overall rate of people passing the exam is low, it is then lower for people from ethnic minority backgrounds. This would heavily discourage me from considering the SQE, and doing a course, as the statistics makes the exam appear inaccessible.”
As one SQE student commented: “I was aware of the differences, but they were very discouraging. Being from the ethnic background with the lowest pass rate, it was a huge source of anxiety when preparing for the exam.”
Our students wanted to know more, they wanted us to speak about the results, acknowledge them and address them.
At ULaw we do acknowledge that these pass rate gaps should not exist, and we are aware of our duty as a legal education provider to do everything we can to address them.
So, what are we doing about it?
1. Listening to our students
We are working in partnership with our Diversity and Inclusion Advocates (DIAs) to understand their lived experience of the SQE. Our DIAs are leading on recommendations for the institution, for example: detailed guidance about assessment structure and reasonable adjustments; comprehensive preparation resources; academic support tailored to individual students’ needs; mentorship and peer-support; case studies of successful students; and the provision of culturally responsive wellbeing support.
We are also addressing their recommendations that go beyond the arguably deficit approach that it is our ethnically minoritised students who are lacking something and that we must provide ‘better’ or ‘additional’ support for them. We are looking at what the University must do to change at an institutional level, addressing lack of representation, discrimination, bias, and creating safe and inclusive learning environments.
Our students also expressed to us the importance of communication about pass rate gaps. There is a concern that explaining this to students could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy both for our students and for the way that we as a provider engage with our students. Knowing about these gaps may impact how students approach their assessments and how they learn at their legal education provider. Similarly, staff at legal education providers’ knowledge of these gaps may impact their aspirations for their students and the support that they give them. At the very least this knowledge could be demotivating for our students, but as they articulate:
“The purpose of informing students of the SQE Attainment Gap for BAME students is to ensure all students are informed but also to promote conversations around inclusivity. The more the issue is spoken about, the better the feedback received to inform policies, but also the more students, staff and University executives can work collectively to solve the gap.”
Our students identified that raising this awareness could help empower students to seek necessary support and speak to the University about these issues, as well as to encourage institutional change and enhanced support.
2. Engaging with the SRA and other stakeholders
The SRA is just as concerned as legal education providers are about the pass rate gaps. By bringing together providers, law firms and other legal organisations, the SRA is investigating the gaps and working collaboratively to identify and implement actions through its differential outcomes forum. Our students expressed that it is important for ULaw to work actively with the SRA and other stakeholders to actively advocate for a more equitable assessment process. Our role is therefore to listen to our students about their experiences of the SQE and to push the SRA to address the issues raised, which go beyond the SRA’s published actions. One specific issue for the SRA to address is that training providers need access to more data to understand their own gaps. Another goes beyond the SRA’s published actions of improving candidates’ and providers’ understanding of the SQE assessment, advocating for a review of the assessment itself, as the SRA has not yet committed to reviewing it.
To support our wider aim of addressing the issues our students face in entering the legal profession, we are also working closely with all relevant stakeholders in the legal sector — law firms, local law societies and other relevant organisations – on initiatives to create equality of opportunity and positive role models for our students.
3. Understanding our role as an undergraduate provider
Pass rate gaps don’t exist only at SQE level. The higher education sector has long been grappling with the complexities of degree awarding gaps. As the University of Exeter’s report suggests, prior education achievement may well be a factor in differential outcomes in legal professional assessments. In our Access and Participation Plan, degree awarding gaps and completion gaps for students from minoritised ethnicities are a key focus. We have committed to delivering an intervention strategy that aims to mitigate the risk that as a legal education provider we replicate the inequalities of the legal profession. Within this intervention strategy we are committed to a range of activities from academic writing support to curriculum development work, increasing staff diversity and staff training.
Pass rate gaps or differential outcomes are unacceptable in any educational programme, but especially in one that is an entry point to a profession that is such an important part of our society. As one of our students said “students like myself are already at a disadvantage and I believe the SQE furthers it. This will limit the talent pool and restrict many from succeeding”. Any limitation of the talent pool in the legal profession will have long-lasting implications on the ability of the profession to reflect and serve the population. Although diversity within the profession is slowly improving, it is not consistent: the biggest increases in diversity are in small firms and at the lower levels of the profession. Some groups, such as disabled lawyers, are still significantly underrepresented compared with the UK workforce.
The University of Law is committed to working with our students, the SRA and the legal profession more broadly to address these gaps. By working with the SRA, we hope to understand our own institutional gaps and be able to measure the impact of our work to reduce the gaps. Learning from what works and what doesn’t work at an institutional level is crucial for all legal education providers, so we can work collaboratively and share best practice to make change and diversify the legal profession. Only then can we ascertain whether the SQE is failing our diverse students and what we need to do as a provider, and more widely as a sector, to advocate on their behalf. This may mean that the SRA needs to review the effectiveness of the current assessment regime and not be afraid to make changes if instead of helping to diversify the profession it is exacerbating the exclusion of minority groups.
Dr Morag Duffin is Director of Student Success, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, at The University of Law.
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