One of the benefits of the
Solicitors Qualifying Examination
(SQE) is that it brings flexibility. Law firms will no longer have the same choking effect on the supply of trainee solicitors as in the past. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is removing a bottleneck and stepping back, as much as it can, from any attempt to manage the supply of solicitors. It is setting a standard for solicitors and anyone that can meet that standard gets to be a solicitor. It is a high standard of course – this is a profession and a title with huge impact on the way our society, democracy and economy work.
Lawyer remains the
most represented
profession in Parliament (though good to see Solicitors taking over from barristers over the last 40 years) and I recently
discovered
that 26 out of the 44 people to be US Presidents have been lawyers. They are at the heart of our democracy. And those lawyers in practice are often protecting fundamental human rights and ensuring that our criminal justice system works. While most lawyers are not doing the work of the elite, they are helping us manage property and disputes, contracts and work; they are oil in our commercial activity. These are the vast majority of the ever-growing band of solicitors and they still need to reach those high professional standards – all solicitors underpin the rule of law. That is why we expect solicitors to adhere to the same code of conduct however and wherever they practice. With freelance solicitors, solicitors in unregulated entities adding to the mix of public sector lawyers, in house commercial lawyers, lawyers in the third sector and of course those in law firms, we have a myriad of opportunities post-qualification as well as through SQE and training. This is flexibility squared.
It is the interaction of and the flexibility in how to qualify and how to practice, aligned to the knowledge of students, educators, employers and law firms that concerns me, especially during the transition to SQE from now until 2021. I am concerned at the number of very odd decisions I see being taken by students and employers, including with help from educators and career advisers. It suggests that they do not understand the current regime let alone SQE and how we get there. Let me give you just one example.
A young person has been working as a legal adviser in an unregulated business where she has been supported to study (post LPC) and qualify as a
Graduate
member of CilEX. She has three years’ experience. She is leaving her employer to go and start a training contract from scratch at a small law firm. She is now two years away from qualifying and will take a substantial pay cut to start her training contract. So she will qualify just as the first SQE exams are sat.
What else could she do if she wants to be a solicitor?
• She could look at
equivalent means
and see if her portfolio ticks off the requirements of the training contract. She could focus on filling any gaps in that as she builds her CilEX portfolio. She could pay the small fee for an equivalent means assessment, complete the Professional Skills Course (PSC) successfully and, subject to the SRA’s Character and Suitability (C&S) assessment become a solicitor within months.
• Alternatively, she could focus on her CiLEX and work to become a
Fellow. And again, subject to PSC and C&S become a solicitor in no more than a year, while continuing to maintain her current pay.
• Finally, she could just wait for SQE and be one of the first to sit it in 2021. It might not be any faster than starting a training contract afresh but at least she will earn a decent salary over the next two years.
What really concerns me is that the reference request from the law firm for this young woman asks the unregulated business if it thinks that the client work she has done could count towards six months of her training contract. Yes, the solicitor, the regulated law firm, asks the non-solicitor, the unregulated business, for advice on qualifying as a solicitor. And the question that they ask misses the alternatives above.
I have seen and heard other examples that worry me. I hear of education providers telling young people that they should do the LPC now, even though they have no training contract, and when asked about SQE are told not to worry about it as it will not happen. I have heard of students being told that SQE does not start until 2021 so it doesn’t apply now. And I hear of students that are utterly confused with what they think is good advice from a trusted source, but it appears to them inconsistent with what they read on the
SRA website.
Happily, I know of other business that are firmly grasping the options ahead. They tend to be either unregulated firms looking to attract talent by helping them qualify as solicitors, new style entrants to the legal market such as multi-disciplinary practices or other more innovative practices.
In my harsher moments I conclude that if a student cannot navigate this then they probably won’t make a good solicitor: research and seeking additional help are core to practice. But I do also worry about regulated lawyers, law firms, educators and careers advisers not being clear about the environment they are operating in. I don’t know if I am misguided, but I prefer the thought of being rubbish to any sense of purposely misleading.
The resources are already available for people to make good decisions. The SRA website has plenty of
student focused material
including considering different routes and a dynamic decision tree. There is also good information for
employers
and
careers advisers. There is a
Facebook
page and information via LinkedIn and Twitter. But something is not quite right.
One leading academic warned me that poorer and more excluded young people would make worse decisions when given flexibility. Perhaps this is evidence that the academic is correct? It may also be evidence that someone who was not, in the old system ever likely to make it as a solicitor is now likely to qualify because of the more flexible legal market that is in place since the Legal Services Act.
I draw two tentative conclusions. The SRA needs to do more to ensure that everyone is making decisions or advising people on decision making with correct information. It probably needs the help of behavioural scientists to get the information to the right people at the right time rather than just broadcast it. Secondly, the SRA needs to keep pushing on to deliver SQE and open-up the legal labour market so that more aspiring young people can fulfil their potential. Other conclusions are available.
*And this week at the heart of our fragile constitution.
