The Pass Rate for the SQE

Recently, we’ve touched upon the new Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE); a new way for solicitors to qualify and start practicing law. We’ve touched up who might be funding the SQE – but what we haven’t touched upon is how many are passing the SQE. Because we’ve had a look at some of the statistics regarding passes – and it seems like the rate isn’t as high as it might need to be.

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. Now, there could be many reasons as to why the pass rate might have been so low: legal news website RollOnFriday have been told by a source that people that took the exam didn’t come down traditional legal routes. Paralegals, candidates with training contracts at City firms and overseas solicitors made up the majority of those who took the January exam this year. The SQE’s greater flexibility means that more people are eligible, but, equally, the standards are seen to be higher: the CLLS committee that met after the results were released noted that the level of success is measured higher with the SQE than the previous system, the LPC. Whereas the LPC expected candidates to be at the level of a day one trainee, the SQE expects them to be at the level of a day one solicitor – which means having a much higher grade of knowledge than what was expected previously.

To dig deep down into the data, Legal Cheek found that there was a huge disparity between the pass rate for different ethnic groups. While 63% of white candidates passed the exam, only 47% of those that passed came from Asian backgrounds, and 29% were candidates of colour. It would be hard, though, to draw any conclusions from this without being in possession of the full data. The regulator is concerned about this, however, and has commissioned an independent report that will be published in November. There were also interesting statistics about those who had completed the QWE (Qualifying Work Experience) period not being as successful as those who hadn’t, as well as those who had a higher grade of degree being more successful. There were also huge issues with the exam itself, with reports of IT problems, delays, and a lack of food and water for a five-hour exam being particularly flagged up – something which would be distressing for anyone.

Can companies afford to have to resend a candidate through this process possibly multiple times just to qualify as a practicing solicitor? It remains to be seen. The City of London Law Society, however, is encouraging firms to stick with candidates that don’t pass first time around. Options such as deferrals may be employed, to give candidates more time to prepare. And with any new system, there will always be kinks to work through. So, we can’t draw too much from these results – but there might still be cause for concern if this trend continues.