Will recent changes to the Solicitors Qualifying Exam result in a decline in professional standards?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority updated the SQE1 format from September 2026, cutting multiple-choice questions by around 20 per paper while retaining the same time allowance and grouping questions by subject to ease pressure. This followed candidate complaints and a petition that the previous randomised, time-pressured test disproportionately affected certain ethnic and learning groups, with pass rates in January 2026 at 67% for white candidates versus 38% for black candidates. The SRA states the changes preserve a rigorous assessment aligned to solicitor competencies, while critics including some in the Law Society worry about diluted rigour, ethics coverage and long-term knowledge gaps in the profession.
5 Opinions
Yes. DEI does not mark the script. A solicitor has to know the work. A gap in pass rates is a pipeline problem, not proof the exam was the offence. Cutting questions after a DEI complaint is how you lower the floor and keep the title. Fix the training. Do not move the test and call it fairness. Clients do not get an adjusted standard.
The panic over 'falling legal standards' is pure melodrama when you look at the actual maths. The SRA cut 20 questions, giving candidates a grand total of six extra seconds per question. Claiming that an extra six seconds to read a contract law problem will flood the country with incompetent solicitors is laughable.
As someone who is actually doing the SQE, these changes make little difference and has nothing to do with DEI as another comment suggests. It has a 50% pass rate and costs £10k minimum to sit with exam fees full price to resit and a limit on resits. You now have to complete 340 questions instead of 360 questions, so still an effing lot of questions.
Exams should never be changed just because of bame & dei.