Guest post by Tom Proverbs-Garbett, whose book, Being a Trainee Solicitor: How to Survive and Thrive, is published by Legal Futures Associate Bath Publishing
Proverbs-Garbett: Trainees can specialise more
The regulatory approach to training has undergone radical change with the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE).
It’s a tough exam at a time when you – as a future or current trainee – are already stretched thin, learning the ropes of law in practice. Although still in relative infancy, there are reports of trainees having to pause their preparation for the test, or take time off from work, because of the exam’s pressures.
Over the summer of 2025, a petition calling for reassessment of the exam got hundreds of signatures. Meanwhile, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is standing firm, pointing to independent assessment of the SQE as rigorous and fit-for-purpose.
The intention behind introduction of the SQE was (and remains) that a final qualification exam has the dual benefit of ensuring “high, consistent, professional standards” across the profession (as described in the SRA’s October 2016 consultation paper which kick-started the reforms), while allowing the approach to on-the-job training to be modified without concern about dilution of ability.
The removal of the financial burden of the legal practice course (LPC), the ability to combine periods of experience, and a standardised test that provides, in theory, an objective measure of competency to practise, are all intended to widen access to the profession. This also aligns with other common law countries which adopt a form of final qualification exam.
The new approach appears to me – and many others – to be more stressful, but there are advantages. Trainees find themselves in a professional environment more quickly (when compared to the LPC).
Rather than paying lip service to legal skills via training that takes place long before they reach a client, under the SQE they will need to hone these skills at the moment they need them most: on the cusp of qualification.
The LPC had long been divisive. Candidates incurred high fees for content that was necessarily limited because of the huge amount of ground the course was designed to cover: introductions to civil and criminal law, specialist electives, skills-based assessments, solicitors’ accounts rules, professional conduct, the list goes on.
Under the new system, trainees are instead able to focus on the type of work carried out by the firm that they intend – or hope – to be part of.
Of course, a final exam may not safeguard high standards at all: reducing the process to a series of tests might simply incentivise candidates to do the bare minimum to get through and qualify.
It’s for this reason that the SRA has repeatedly emphasised the importance of maintaining a period of workplace training. In any event, most firms, used as they are to the way a two-year training contract operates, are loathe to move away from it.
This is fair enough. The two years of training is about more than experiencing law and learning professional practice. It’s about understanding how the firm operates, its concerns and values. Firms will (or are extremely likely to) want trainees to go through a programme they have designed.
For many, the training experience is unlikely to be different to that of their antecedents. After all, final exam or not, it is experience and empathy which will set them apart as a lawyer – their ability to understand a situation and work out how to deal with the people involved to improve or resolve it.
There is no better training for that than being in the professional environment and soaking it up, seeing how seniors deal with clients, problems, others in the team.
So, while the SQE clearly exerts considerable pressure and has generated the most discussion, under the new regime the work experience element of qualification becomes more important, not less so.
Rather than being a formality, the new approach puts greater emphasis on the quality of on-the-job training, even if disaggregated. Good-quality experience will help candidates succeed on the SQE, putting its requirements into a practical context.
As such, it has never been more important to participate as fully as possible in any way that trainees can in the life of the firm they join. Learning about how firms work is part of becoming a rounded professional – it teaches them that being a lawyer is more than an exam, while at the same time placing their studies into real-life settings.
The catch-22, I grant, is being able to find the time to become involved in the life of the firm while balancing the demands of legal work and studying. That is part of the reason I decided to write my book – to give students a head start in understanding what being a solicitor entails, helping them to consider where best to direct their energies.
Firms will need to be sensitive to the additional demands of a make-or-break exam: it may be that something has to give, whether that is a period of paid leave (akin to the arrangements put in place to take the bar in the US) or a shake-up of the timings, such that parts of the SQE are completed before or after training.
Whatever happens, incomers to the profession need to pace themselves; qualification is no longer a function of time served but a mix of continuing study and growing experience. Hopefully, my book provides a welcome leg-up as they set out to qualify.
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