What is the SQE?
Who is the SQE for?
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Dates and locations
Assessment information
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Updated July 2025
A number of questions have been raised about the interpretation of the Assessment Specifications and particularly the detail of the Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK).
It is not helpful or appropriate to specify the FLK in minute detail. Doing so can raise as many questions as it answers and can lead to the creation of an unnecessarily large and unwieldy volume of information.
However reading the Assessment Specification holistically should assist those asking for more detail. Within the Assessment Specification for SQE2, the following sections are particularly useful: Practice Areas, Level of Legal Detail Required, Application of Law, Correct and Comprehensive Application of Law, and Legal Materials as well as the information (Overview, Assessment Objectives and Assessment Criteria) about each of the assessments.
It is worth noting particularly that:
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
Any questions raised by stakeholders will be fed into this annual review process.
The legal skills assessments in SQE2 are:
Further detail about each of these assessments is given in Assessments in SQE2.
Although there is no separate assessment called negotiation, all deliveries of SQE2 will contain at least one assessment involving negotiation. Negotiation may be assessed in either interview and attendance note/legal analysis and/or case and matter analysis and/or legal writing.
The practice areas in which these legal skills are assessed are:
Questions in these practice areas may draw on underlying black letter law in the Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK) as follows:
Professionalism and ethics will be core parts of SQE2. Questions on ethics will be pervasive throughout SQE2. Ethical issues will not be flagged and candidates will need to identify any ethical and professional conduct issues and exercise judgment to resolve them honestly and with integrity.
Questions involving taxation may arise in Property Practice; Wills and Intestacy, Probate Administration and Practice; and Business organisations, rules and procedures.
Detail of the examinable content covered is given in Annex 1. Property Practice is under the headings freehold and leasehold real estate law and practice and core principles of planning law. Annex 1 is a sub-set of the FLK in SQE1. For the avoidance of doubt the legal system of England and Wales, constitutional and administrative law and EU law, legal services (apart from money laundering and financial services) and solicitors’ accounts are not examined in SQE2. Money laundering and financial services are examinable in the context of business organisations, rules and procedures.
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.
For practical purposes SQE2 is divided into two parts as follows:
The assessments in SQE2 oral are:
SQE2 oral will take place over two half days. The following table shows the assessments candidates will undertake on each of the days. Candidates will take a total of four oral legal skills assessments.
Please note that different candidates may complete the assessments in different orders. Candidates may therefore start with either the interview and attendance note/legal analysis or the advocacy.
Further details of the assessments are available in Assessments in SQE2 as follows: Client interviewing and completion of attendance note/legal analysis and Advocacy.
The assessments in SQE2 written are:
SQE2 written takes place over three half-days. You will take a total of 12 written legal skills assessments.
You may complete the assessments in a different order to that listed.
Further details of the assessments are available in Assessments in SQE2 as follows: Case and matter analysis, Legal research, Legal writing and Legal drafting
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:
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 make sure that adequate weighting is given to the quality of the advice provided.
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 practise 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 are published on the SQE website.
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.
The above guidance does not apply to the SQE2 Legal Research assessment (see Assessments in SQE2 below) in which candidates can be expected to cite specific case names, or cite statutory or regulatory authorities.
In all other circumstances candidates are not required to recall specific case names, or cite statutory or regulatory authorities.
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:
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.
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.
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.
The assessment criteria for the written skills refer to clear, precise, concise and acceptable language. This may include:
There is no spell check or highlighting function for the SQE2 written assessments.
Further guidance provided to markers for SQE2 written assessments on spelling and grammar is set out below.
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 Standard Setting Policy.
For all stations except legal research, candidates will be provided, as part of their assessment materials, with materials that a Day One Solicitor would look up.
Candidates will need sufficient knowledge to make them competent to practise 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 their assessment materials. However, legal materials will only be provided where it is considered that a Day One Solicitor would need to refer to those materials. Sample questions and indicative answers are published on the SQE website. For detail on the legal research assessment see Legal research.
Any other materials, such as books and notes, cannot be brought into or used during the assessments.
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.
Try the SQE2 sample questions
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