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Updated August 2025
This guidance is designed to assist with the interpretation of the SQE Assessment Specification.
Candidates should read each SQE Assessment Specification by considering all parts together. The Assessment Specification for SQE1 contains a number of sections setting out guidance on various topics relating to the assessment, including an overview of the SQE1 Assessments, how the assessment tests the application of legal rules and principles, the use of legal authorities and how Ethics and Professional Conduct is tested. There is also a section explaining Functional Legal Knowledge (FLK) with links to both FLK1 and FLK2 at the bottom of the page.
Candidates may find it helpful to note:
To ensure the fairness and integrity of the SQE, information about the Assessment Specifications will be released to all stakeholders at the same time. There will be an annual review of the FLK to:
The two SQE1 Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK) assessments comprise the following subject areas:
Within each of the above FLK assessments, questions may draw on any combination of the subject areas which might be encountered in practice.
Ethics and Professional Conduct will be examined pervasively across the two assessments above.
Principles of taxation will be examined only in the context of:
Below subject areas are grouped within two sections giving details of each of the two FLK assessments. For each area, assessment objectives are set out, followed by the knowledge of law and practice which candidates are expected to apply in order to answer the questions.
The depth and breadth of knowledge of English and Welsh law required of candidates is that of functioning legal knowledge. This means that candidates must apply their knowledge of the law to demonstrate the competences required to the level of a newly qualified solicitor of England and Wales.
The core legal principles and rules a candidate will be asked to apply are identified by subject area below. A candidate should be able to apply these fundamental legal principles and rules appropriately and effectively at the level required of a competent newly qualified solicitor in practice, to realistic client-based and ethical problems and situations. Each single best answer question is followed by five possible answers. There is only one correct answer to each question. Candidates should mark only one answer for each question. Please see SQE1 sample questions for more information on single best answer questions.
The SQE1 FLK assessments are closed book. The questions in the assessments are designed to test the application of fundamental legal principles which can be expected of a newly qualified solicitor of England and Wales without reference to books and notes. They are not designed to test matters of detail which a newly qualified solicitor would be expected to look up.
The cut off date for the law upon which candidates are examined in the SQE will be four calendar months prior to the date of the first assessment in an assessment window. Candidates will be tested on the law as it stands at that date. They will not be tested on the development of the law. For the avoidance of doubt, changes in the law which are implemented on the calendar date four calendar months prior to the first SQE assessment in an assessment window may be examined.
The relationship between the Statement of Solicitor Competence (SoSC) and the legal principles and rules which candidates must know and apply is indicated at Annex 3. In the FLK assessments, candidates will be tested at level 3 of the Threshold Standard - ie that of the newly qualified solicitor – as set out in Annex 6.
The following illustrations of the range of question style used to test the FLK are not intended to be exhaustive:
The published sample questions provide examples of the style of questions which may be used to test the candidate's ability to apply the fundamental legal principles and rules that are set out in this assessment specification.
Whilst 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 in Wales. These factors have consequences for how the law operates in Wales.
Candidates will be required to show that they can apply their knowledge of the sources of primary and secondary legislation in England and Wales and how that law is applied.
Solicitors of England and Wales are entitled to practise 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.
On occasion in legal practice a case name or statutory provision, for example, is the term normally used to describe a legal principle or an area of law, or a rule or procedural step (eg Rylands v Fletcher, CPR Part 36, Section 25 notice). In such circumstances, candidates are required to know and be able to use such case names, statutory provisions etc. In all other circumstances candidates are not required to recall specific case names, or cite statutory or regulatory authorities.
The FLK assessments for SQE1 will sample from the content indicated in this assessment specification. A blueprint is provided at Annex 4.
Candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to act honestly and with integrity, and in accordance with the SRA Standards and Regulations as follows:
Together referred to as the Code of Conduct.
See SoSC (A1) at Annex 1.
Ethics and Professional Conduct will be examined pervasively across the two assessments and can be examined across all subject areas. As with the other subject areas, the questions will be based on realistic client-based problems and situations which can include those set out in relevant SRA warning notices, such as those relating to Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs).
Sample questions give you an idea of the style of questions which may be used to test your ability to apply fundamental legal principles and rules.
Learn more: SQE1 sample questions
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