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 make sure 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 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.

Legal Authorities

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.

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 which 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 which are legally effective
• Applying understanding, critical thinking and analysis to solve problems
• Assessing information to identify key issues and risks
• Recognising 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

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.

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.

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.

• Candidates should not lose marks for spelling mistakes that:
  • do not impact on the legal accuracy, clarity and/or certainty of the written text; and
  • would normally be flagged by spell check functionality, noting that spell check would not, for example, necessarily flag errors in names, addresses, dates or values.
• Candidates should not lose marks for grammatical errors that:
  • do not impact on the legal accuracy, clarity and/or certainty of the written text, noting that, for example, grammatical errors in the use of tense could have such an impact; and
  • do not make the written text inaccessible to the intended reader.
• Candidates should not lose marks for poor formatting, given the lack of formatting support on the test platform and the time restraints under which candidates are working.

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 Standard Setting Policy.

Legal materials

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.