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New ‘super-exam’ threatens social welfare law
From the Times ....
A “super-exam” for the qualification of solicitors will not prepare students for social welfare law, campaigners claim.
From 2021 students will no longer have to complete the traditional path to qualification, which includes a qualifying law degree or conversion course diploma, the legal practice course and a training contract. Instead, would-be solicitors in England and Wales will have only to pass a two-stage solicitors qualifying exam (SQE) and a period of qualifying work experience ...
More: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/law/new-super-exam-threatens-social-welfare-law-xmq9kd728
I don’t have access to this, but don’t agree with the headline.
The SQE doesn’t cover social welfare law issues, but neither does the current LPC so I am not sure that the “super exam” is the problem in this regard.
(The issue with the super-exam is that the current system of intensive exams and practical tests is going to be replaced with a multiple choice test which doesn’t really do very much in terms of testing analytical skills or practical lawyering skills as much as the ability to have a superficial awareness of legal issues)
The problem with getting into social welfare law as a solicitor is that there are few training contracts available at social welfare firms and those that are available generally pay relatively poorly compared to commercial firms..
What the new system will do is to open up the ability to get into law by replacing the training contract with a notion of “qualifying work experience”; the definition of which seems to be broad enough that as long as a solicitor is involved somewhere, it could count. This could be extremely significant for e.g. caseworkers at law centres who would never get a training contract but could now argue that their ordinary salaried work is QWE - enabling them to qualify as a solicitor through the new route.
The more likely outcome though will be an increase on the downward pressure on salaries, which is actually where government has long since been coming from on this i.e. as the bar to entry reduces then so does the salary and the ability to argue that specialist knowledge is at play.