SQE student — Katie Toolan

Katie is studying the LLM Legal Practice (SQE1&2) with The University of Law. She explains what to expect from the exams and her advice for others doing the same

Why did you decide on a career in law?

I knew I wanted an intellectually stimulating career that provided services to customers as I enjoy working with others. I have strong problem solving, analytical and communication skills, which I enjoy continually developing, and I knew these were essential skills for lawyers.

I pursued work experience throughout sixth form and university to gain more knowledge about what a law career involves. I found there is an increasing need for lawyers to be commercially aware, particularly in a commercial business setting. I enjoy thinking outside the box, with approaches that are both legally and commercially derived, and so, became set on a career in commercial law.

What SQE preparation did you complete and what did this involve?

The course is divided into three sections - SQE1 Preparation, SQE2 Preparation and SQE Plus. I am currently doing the SQE Plus element of the course. This is an additional element not necessary for the SQE exams themselves. It involves studying five elective modules outside the core legal subjects that the SQE exams cover.

The SQE1 preparation course was around three months long. The course covered the new legal practice content such as criminal practice and property practice. However, it did not go over black letter law subjects such as criminal law or land law, although revision books for these subjects were provided, as well as lots of practice questions.

Over ten weeks, we were required to complete reading, single-best answer questions tests for each module and revise the black letter law subjects as instructed.

Two weeks before the exam there was also an intensive two-day exam prep course that involved completing 27 questions on each practice area to test our knowledge.

The SQE2 preparation course was only a five-week course and emphasised the skills being assessed. The course provided opportunities to practice all six key skill areas:

• advocacy
• interviewing
• legal drafting
• legal writing
• legal research
• Case and Matter analysis.

Additionally it provided opportunities to revise the key practice areas being assessed.

I also completed the SQE2 exam prep course where we did mock assessments for each skill.

How did you book your exams?

I booked the SQE1 exams through the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) website. This involved some pre-booking steps including submitting your identification and disclosing whether you need any reasonable adjustments prior to the booking system opening.

On the day the booking system opened, I logged on and was in a queue for around four hours before I was able to book a slot. Luckily, my local centre, Chester, still had spaces but it did mean sitting the two exams only three days apart. As a sponsored student, I did not have to pay but instead, inputted the voucher code on the payment page and the booking went through.

The process was slightly different for my SQE2. There was a form emailed to us and I had to fill in my preferred location and dates. When the booking system opened, I was already allocated a slot based off the location and dates I had requested on the form. I just had to log on to the SRA SQE website and pay for the assessments with the voucher code provided in advance.

Tell us about the exams

The SQE1 was two exams of 180 single best answer questions (SBAQs). Each assessment day was five hours long, split into two lots of 90 SBAQ questions with an optional one-hour break in the middle. I completed SQE1 in January 2024 and passed in the top 20% for both exams.

My exam day started at 8am. There were people going in and out of the room during the exam and so, I would recommend making use of the earplugs provided if you are easily distracted. I found after around 30 questions my eyes would start to get tired of staring at the screen so I would turn away or stretch to get a little break.

Additionally, the software lets you flag questions that you would like to review at the end found it useful to pause for a second or leave the room before I went back over the questions. The clock does not stop if you leave the room so I would only recommend this if you have the time for it. 

I recently sat the SQE2 exams and am awaiting the results. It is assessed very differently to SQE1. There are three days of written exams and two days of oral exams.

The written exams are on Case and Matter Analysis (CMA), legal writing, legal drafting and legal research. You sit these back-to-back each day with an optional 15-minute break in the middle. I started at 9am and finished before 1pm each day. The CMA and legal research questions were an hour long, legal drafting was 45 minutes and legal writing was only 30 minutes.

For day one and two, you don’t know which topic the skill will cover. I found the questions were quite specific for the written exams.

I sat the oral exams a week after my SQE2 written exams. The exams are one hour each but there was a lot of waiting round, so I was at the test centre for five hours each day.

The interviewing assessment allowed ten minutes to read the question and information provided, as well as make notes. The group was then walked, in silence, to another room and instructed to knock and enter. In the room there was an actor who played the client based on the information provided in advance. I had 25 minutes to interview about why they had come in to speak to me, what their concerns were and give them preliminary legal advice. My group was then brought back to the original room to spend 25 minutes writing up an attendance note by hand.

For advocacy, I had 45 minutes to prepare in the same room my group had been in for the interview prep and attendance note. I was then assigned a different room to perform my advocacy exam. I knocked on the door and entered and presented to the judge.

The oral exams involved a lot more thinking on your feet as there is not much time to prepare a script or set out questions to ask.

When and how will you receive the results?

For SQE1, you receive the results around six weeks after you sit the exams. For SQE2, you get the results between 12 and 15 weeks after you sit the exams.

The results for both are given on the SRA SQE website. On SQE1 results day, I received an email telling me my results had been posted and I signed into my SQE account to see them. For SQE1 it stated whether I had passed each of the two exams, what my raw and scaled marks were, and a breakdown of what I got in each practice area.

For SQE2, you receive the results in the same way and the SRA website explains what information is given.

How are you funding your SQE exams?

I am sponsored by Pinsent Masons. I did a vacation scheme with them, which led to a training contract offer. This includes payment for my course, SQE exams and an additional grant.  

What will the qualifying work experience (QWE) look like for you?

I have a training contract offer starting this September. This is the more traditional route of qualifying work experience. It involves four seats for six months each. There are also secondments available to work with clients, or in different locations or countries.

Where do you hope to be in five years?

I hope to be three years post-qualified at Pinsent Masons or a similar firm. I have not decided what specific area of law I want to pursue in the long run, but I hope I can work in both contentious and transactional seats during my training contract to get a full range to decide.

What advice can you give to others planning to take the SQE exams?

There is a lot of content to cover, and you need a good understanding of the topics to answer the questions well in both SQE1 and SQE2. I found revising the modules consistently over time and continually going back over the topics I had completed helped deepen my understanding and kept the content fresh in my mind.

I also recommend doing practice questions from the start. At first, I would not score very highly in SBAQs. The format is very different to previous assessments I had completed, so I found it helpful to reflect on why the answer I had chosen was wrong. I trusted that as I did more questions and reflected on them, my answers would improve as I became more familiar with the format and style of questions for both the SQE1 and SQE2 assessments.

Finally, make sure you are confident in the black letter law taught in undergraduate or law conversion courses. It is 50% of the SQE1 exams and a good understanding of the black letter law reduces the amount of time needed to revise it significantly.

Find out more

• Read all about the SQE.
• Take a look at the law sector.
• Discover the LLM Legal Practice (SQE1&2) at The University of Law.
• Browse other SQE programmes by The University of Law.