How to become a solicitor

The route to becoming a solicitor has changed dramatically in recent years. And this has had a major impact on legal education.

Again this applies only to England and Wales with Scotland and Northern Ireland having their own pathways.

The old route followed a similar model to that for barristers. There was the academic stage of either a Qualifying Law Degree that included the seven Foundations of Legal Knowledge or another university degree followed by an intense law conversion course, usually the Graduate Diploma in Law. There was the vocational stage in the form of the Legal Practice Course. And there was the training stage in the form of a training contract.

However, a review in the 2010s has led to a major shake up of the whole process. To become a solicitor one now needs to take the following:

• A university degree, but it doesn't have to be in Law. (But that no doubt helps.)
• The Solicitors Qualifying Examination. This comes in two parts, testing both knowledge and skills. The exam is nationalised but many providers offer their own preparation.
• A total of two years of Qualifying Work Experience, with flexibility on where it is taken and when relative to both the degree and the SQE.

Notably there is no longer a formal requirement to have studied the Foundations of Legal Knowledge. The SQE tests Functioning Legal Knowledge (yes the acronym is identical) which covers many of the same subjects along with some others and operational knowledge.

(One of the biggest differences is that the amount of EU Law has been significantly reduced to the point that a course of study for SQE preparation, such as the solicitor route of the Open University's Bachelor of Laws degree, does not double as the full Foundations, unless one takes EU Law as an additional module.)

So far the impact on undergraduate Law degrees has been mixed. Because the barristers' route hasn't changed, most LLB degrees are still built around the Foundations of Legal Knowledge. Some universities have introduced an "integrated Master's degree" - basically a four-year degree that combines both the Bachelor's and Master's stages in a single course - called the Master's in Law (MLaw) that includes preparation for taking the SQE exams.

The Open University has taken a different approach, with different pathways at Level 3. One of them is SQE preparation in three modules (plus one option) offering a combined degree and SQE preparation together. There is also the standalone Professional Certificate in Legal Practice: SQE1 which consists of the three SQE modules by themselves.

As it's only five years since the SQE was introduced there will invariably be modifications to come. But for now this is the route to becoming a solicitor.

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