Hannah Uglow, SQE & LPC programme and student lead at The University of Law, discusses the best and worst things about the exams and shares her top tips on how to tackle them
Hannah Uglow started her legal career in criminal defence. While practising, she taught at the University of Kent and joined their law clinic, working with students on live cases. Uglow then moved to The University of Law as a lecturer and is now the SQE programme lead.
I ask Uglow what motivated her to start teaching law as well as practising. “In my view, the law should be accessible,” she responds. She stresses that, although law is often made out to be obscure or complex, it’s very possible for all law students to understand it. “Once I’d been in practice, I saw how the law operates: you have the facts of a situation and you have the rules — it’s simply a matter of applying one to the other.” She continues, “I really liked helping students get to that moment when the penny drops. Suddenly, rather than just getting through it, they start really understanding and enjoying the law — in every cohort I have taught I have seen students have that shift in understanding.” Additionally, Uglow sees teaching as a mutually beneficial exercise, “If you want to be a good practitioner, then teaching is the best way to stay on top of things and keep your knowledge fresh,” she explains.
Having taught academic and vocational law, Uglow is now SQE course lead at The University of Law. “I thought the SQE was a mind-blowing challenge, so I got involved at course lead level,” she tells me. Before we get into these challenges, I am keen to discuss some of the positives that the new SQE exams are bringing aspiring lawyers. “The big positive is qualifying work experience,” says Uglow. “I come from a community law and legal aid background,” she continues, “the challenges of qualifying into that area were much greater in the old system because training contracts don’t exist in the same way in that world — as in a lot of the private client world. With the SQE, people are qualifying into community and legal aid sooner than they would have done – and I think that’s a great thing.
The SQE has also moved criminal law and practice into its core practice areas. “The SQE has lifted the profile of criminal law, and from my perspective as a criminal practitioner that’s good,” Uglow remarks. She comments on the benefits of a wider core syllabus more generally, “The breadth of the syllabus is a very good foundation for anyone going into law. There’s a real value in having an awareness of areas that you don’t intend to specialise in, because they complement your knowledge and ability as a lawyer.” However she is quick to note, “that enormous syllabus is a bit of a double-edged sword though, because it puts off a lot of potentially good lawyers from starting a course.”
I am curious to know what Uglow considers the biggest challenge the SQE poses for students. “The toughest part of all is a transition to a completely different way of learning,” she replies immediately. “Students have learnt to write essays they have learnt to evaluate and question things but the SQE is not interested in that. What SQE 1 is interested in is factual recall and application.” Her top tip for this style of exam is “let go of control” and get comfortable with not memorising the syllabus perfectly: “If you are familiar with every point in that syllabus, then you’re putting yourself in the strongest position to be able to identify the best answers. If you are trying to memorise everything then you’re crippling yourself and you will struggle.”
Uglow also emphasises the importance of practice to adjust to this new style of assessment. She likens it to training for a marathon: “You don’t run 26 miles right away. You build up to it. You have to go over and over the methods and keep practising. It never gets easier, but you do get better.” Students at The University of Law will have “a fantastic range of single best answer practice questions” to help them practise. “You’re being provided with the best content you can get from experienced practitioners and so if you are dedicated, consistent, methodical, and you practise you will overcome those challenges,” says Uglow.
Before we finish our conversation, I ask Uglow what advice she would give to someone starting their SQE prep course this September. For those students really keen to get started, she recommends looking over academic law topics. “Some students won’t have looked criminal law and the other core subjects since the first year of their LLB — at least three or four years ago. So dust off those books and remind yourself of your academic law,” she says. However, what she really recommends is to relax over your summer holiday. “Enjoy the break now, because it’s going to be tough,” she says. “Genuinely, enjoy your summer and take time out to relax and get yourself mentally and physically prepared. If you’re starting in September for a January sit, that’s going to be three months of hard work so make sure you’ve had a break before going into it.”
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