Marking SQE2

Overview

The interviewing station will be marked by the assessor playing the role of the client and will be marked on skills only. The attendance note and all other stations will be marked by a solicitor who will assess candidates on both skills and application of law.

The assessment criteria against which candidates will be judged in each of the six types of legal skills stations are provided at Assessments in SQE2 below. Performance in each of these criteria will be assessed on a scale from A – F by trained assessors making global professional judgments related to the standard of competency of the assessment1 as follows:

• Superior performance: well above the competency requirements of the assessment
• Clearly satisfactory: clearly meets the competency requirements of the assessment
• Marginal pass: on balance, just meets the competency requirements of the assessment
• Marginal fail: on balance, just fails to meet the competency requirements of the assessment
• Clearly unsatisfactory: clearly does not meet the competency requirements of the assessment
• Poor performance: well below the competency requirements of the assessment.

This grading will then be converted into numerical marks such that A = 5 marks and F = 0 marks.

The marking criteria for each of the stations has been divided into marks for skills and marks for application of law. In arriving at a final mark for the candidate across all assessments, skills and application of law are weighted equally. This is to ensure that adequate weighting is given to the quality of the advice provided.

Level of legal detail required

In demonstrating that they have reached the standard of competency of a Day One Solicitor, candidates will need to demonstrate that they can apply fundamental legal principles in the skills-based situations covered by SQE2 in a way that addresses the client’s needs and concerns. They will need sufficient knowledge to make them competent to practice on the basis that they can look up detail later. Candidates will not be expected to know or address detail that a Day One Solicitor would look up unless they have been provided with that detail as part of the assessment materials. See also the legal materials section below. Sample questions and indicative answers will be published on the SQE website.

Application of law

The assessment criteria for SQE2 refer to correct and comprehensive application of law. The following is a non-exhaustive list of what this may include:

• Identifying relevant legal principles
• Applying legal principles to factual issues, so as to produce a solution that best addresses a client’s needs and reflects the client’s commercial or personal circumstances, including as part of a negotiation
• Interpreting, evaluating, and applying the results of research
• Ensuring that advice is informed by appropriate legal analysis and identifies the consequences of different options
• Drafting documents that are legally effective
• Applying understanding, critical thinking, and analysis to solve problems
• Assessing information to identify key issues and risks
• Recognizing inconsistencies and gaps in information
• Evaluating the quality and reliability of information
• Using multiple sources of information to make effective judgments
• Reaching reasoned decisions supported by relevant evidence.

Correct and comprehensive application of law

The assessment criteria for application of law refer to legally correct and legally comprehensive. How each of these is interpreted will depend on an academic judgment about each assessment informed by the Statement of Solicitor Competence (Annex 3) and the Functioning Legal Knowledge for SQE2 (Annex 1). For instance, in an assessment where the candidate has to identify the legal issues, credit for this might be given under legally comprehensive. Where the legal issues are made explicit in the question, credit under legally comprehensive might be awarded for giving a comprehensive analysis of those issues, not just for identifying them.

Application of law in the single jurisdiction of England and Wales

While Wales does not form a separate legal jurisdiction (it is part of the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales), the laws that apply in England may be different from the laws that apply in Wales. In Wales, the Welsh language has official status and can be used in proceedings. These factors have consequences for how the law operates in Wales.

Solicitors of England and Wales are entitled to practice both in England and in Wales. Candidates will be required to apply, at the level of the newly qualified solicitor, their knowledge that, in relation to certain topics, the law is different in the two territories.

Clear, precise, concise, and acceptable language

The assessment criteria for the written skills refer to clear, precise, concise, and acceptable language. This may include:

• Using clear, succinct, and accurate language and avoiding unnecessary technical terms where they are not appropriate to the recipient
• Using an acceptable style of communication for the situation and recipient.

Passing SQE2

In order to pass SQE2, candidates must obtain the overall pass mark for SQE2. For the avoidance of doubt, please note that there is not a separate pass mark for SQE2 oral and SQE2 written. There is one pass mark for SQE2 as a whole. For details of how the pass mark is set, see the Marking and Moderation Policy (this will be made available in the future).

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