Is the SQE Worth Paying For?

The Solicitors Qualifying Exam has opened new opportunities for people to access the legal sector. While there are some qualifying criteria, it is more flexible about the experience you can have, allowing potential solicitors to build up a portfolio of work in 4 legal firms across 2 years. However, like all routes into the legal sector, it is a pricy business: the total cost of the exams can run to up to £20,000. So, we wanted to know: are law firms willing to pay the cost to train new staff?

Like with any training programme, there are costs to be covered. There are two exams in the SQE, which together cost £4,115, plus preparatory courses for both, and that’s before you even count that you’ll have to pay the full cost again if whoever takes the exam doesn’t pass first time around. Some firms we’ve found are taking on the costs: Slaughter and May, Addleshaw Goddard and Kingsley Napley have adopted the SQE, and are paying for the exam, the prep course and even a maintenance grant to cover the costs of those studying for the SQE. There are routes for those who can’t secure funding as well, but those might be limited in terms of the money they will provide and may mean that potential students may have to take on extra work just to cover the costs. This could disincentivise people for lower income households and backgrounds from applying, a problem which the legal industry is working hard to try and overcome. Law has traditionally been seen as an elite profession, with SRA data finding that only 17% of lawyers come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. If those who are looking to get into law from lower socio-economic backgrounds can get a law firm to help support their costs, then that would give them greater piece of mind about something that might otherwise act as a barrier to their entry into the sector.

As I mentioned above, the cost of the SQE also must include any potential retakes of the exams, if the potential lawyer fails it. The SRA recently released the figures of how many candidates passed the January 2023 SQE1 assessment, and found that only 51% passed the exam, allowing them to move onto the second part of the assessment. So, law firms might be spending a lot of money to help train their new solicitors, only to have to keep spending money to try to get them to pass.

The SQE might be useful for some, but, for a lot of others, it could prove a minefield to navigate – and a prohibitively expensive one at that.