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James Pritchard

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Pressure mounts on SRA over the new SQE ‘super-exam’

Exam

The pressure on the SRA over its new ‘super-exam’ has intensified in recent weeks, with the Junior Lawyers Division warning that it could damage the credibility of the profession and the Legal Services Board listing a number of concerns that the SRA needs to address before it gets approval.

The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has warned that the proposed SQE “poses significant risks to the standing and credibility (both domestically and internationally) of the solicitor qualification”.

The warning came in a letter at the beginning of November to the Legal Services Board (LSB), the regulator which needs to give final sign off to the new exam before it comes into force in September 2021.

The JLD, which represents 70,000 law students, trainees and solicitors up to five years’ PQE, has already voiced numerous concerns over the new exam, as we have written about here and here.

Multiple-choice

In a letter sent to the LSB’s Chair Dr Helen Phillips, the JLD’s Amy Clowrey said that by moving away “from the academic, essay-based means of assessment of legal knowledge” to multiple-choice questions in SQE1 would negatively affect “the quality of people entering the profession”.

In her letter, Clowrey referred to criticism of the SQE raised by Clyde & Co, Linklaters and the University of Oxford in a consultation about the exam. Clyde & Co is on record as saying it has “strong concerns” about whether legal knowledge can be tested by multiple-choice questions and fears individuals entering the profession “may do so knowing substantially less law”.

Similar reservations have been expressed by the University of Oxford, which said multiple-choice questions are “of no value in determining whether an individual would be able to give competent advice in situations in which the law is unclear”. 

Linklaters has been even more damning, saying: “We fundamentally disagree that the proposed SQE is a robust and effective measure of competence.”

Key issues the SRA needs to address

It seems these criticisms are not falling on death ears, as the LSB has itself expressed some disquiet about the SQE. The LSB has said it will be sending to the SRA a list of “key issues” that need to be addressed in its second application, which is due in July/August next year.

Chris Nichols, the LSB’s Director of Regulation and Policy, has said it is important that the SQE provides “a fully valid assessment of competence and that quality, and perceptions of quality, are not compromised”.

Nichols has also responded to previous worries expressed by the JLD and others about students being mistreated during their qualifying work experience noting that there is an “overall lack of any quality assurance of the process by the SRA”.

Dr Helen Phillips has herself chimed in, saying: “The board is aware of the strength of feeling around the SRA’s introduction of the SQE, and we were pleased to have an opportunity to discuss the next steps for the process. We know that there remain a number of concerns for stakeholders, and our overarching desire to proactively gather and understand such views carries over into any discussion of the SQE.”

Will the SQE be too difficult?

Meanwhile, Linklaters has also questioned whether the new exam is going to be too difficult, and warns that if it is, there will be knock-on effects for firms in terms of both recruitment and reputational damage.

Linklaters’ Head of Global Training, Patrick McCann, has said: “The SRA is basing SQE1 on the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme and that has something like a 50% fail rate. Currently, the law degree fail rate is about 2% and the Legal Practice Course fail rate is about 10-20%, and for firms like Linklaters it’s 0-2%.”

McCann has said a high fail rate would cause huge complications for City firms: “We recruit for spaces and if we’re left with spaces because our recruitment round doesn’t make it through that causes all sorts of problems.”

He also fears that “the reputational risk if you’re the law firm that doesn’t get students through the exams is going to be huge”.

But Sarah Hutchinson, managing director of legal education provider Barbri has played down these anxieties and said: “Typically when a new exam is introduced, you would expect the examiner to give the benefit of the doubt to the students and it is not in the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s best interests to produce dramatic fail rates. After all, they want the SQE to succeed.”

It seems certain that analysis of the new SQE (both positive and negative) will continue to play out in the legal press as we head towards 2021. We’ll update you with the latest news as and when it comes in.

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10 pieces of career advice every ambitious NQ should follow

How often do you hear successful people say they wish they’d known at the start of their career what they know now? How they would love to be able to sit down with their younger self and teach them what they learned over the years. If only they could perform that time-travel trick, how much smoother their career path would have been.

We speak every day to careers advisers and partners at the top of the legal profession. Here are 10 of the best tips they have for newly qualifieds and junior lawyers at the start of their career:

1. Go to your boss with a solution, not a problem

At its most basic level, a lawyer’s job is to solve their clients’ problems. The higher you rise in the profession, the tougher the problems become. Most partners have additional, non-client problems to deal with too, usually in relation to the running of the firm. The last thing a partner wants to do is solve your problems as well as their own. They want to see that you have the ability, tenacity and initiative to work things out for yourself. At the very least, they expect you to attempt to find the solution to the issue at hand.

2. Keep on learning

After years of school, university and law college, it is easy to lapse into the mindset that your days of studying are behind you. This would be a mistake. The best lawyers are the ones who never stop learning, whether from their own experience, their colleagues or anyone else they come into contact with. This requires an enquiring mind and a dose of humility. As the saying goes: “True humility is staying teachable, regardless of how much you already know.”

3. Admit your mistakes and learn from them

Every lawyer has had that heart-stopping moment when they realise they’ve made a terrible error. It may be more than a little tempting to pretend it hasn’t happened and hope it will go away, but whatever you do, resist. It’s how you deal with life’s challenges that reveals your true character. Own up, face the music and take responsibility. And whatever you do, learn your lesson and don’t make the same mistake again.

4. Understand your strengths and weaknesses

No one is good at everything, and you are no different. The chances are that you are excellent at some things, average at a few and less competent at others. The best organisations employ people with complementary skill sets. Start by recognising and cultivating your particular talents as this is where you can shine. You can always get help from other people on things you are weak at, so be honest with yourself about what these are.

5. Learn to delegate

Delegation is one of the hardest skills for a junior lawyer to master. People resist delegating for several reasons. One is the embarrassment that you are asking someone else, possibly someone older than you, to do something for you. You may fear you are going to be perceived as too high and mighty for the task at hand.

Or, you may think it is easier to do the job yourself as you know it will get done properly and more quickly than if you have to explain it to someone else and wait for them to do it.

The truth is that as you rise higher in the profession, your time becomes more valuable. You should aim to spend it doing work that makes the most of your skills and experience and delegating the rest.

6. Professional reputation

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffet. That says it all.

7. Find a mentor… and be a mentor

If your firm offers a structured mentoring programme, by all means, use it. But many mentoring relationships are informal and evolve naturally. Find someone you admire and whose advice you value, and ask them if they would be willing to share their knowledge and experience to help your career. Clarify what you expect from the mentoring and make sure you keep them updated about your progress, especially if they give you specific advice.

Also, be willing to mentor someone more junior than you. Not only will it improve your leadership skills, you are likely to be energised by their energy and enthusiasm.

8. Stay in the loop, but avoid the gossip

If you want to be trusted and respected at all levels of the firm, avoid being a gossip. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have your ear to the ground so that you know what is going on around you. But gossiping about other people will almost inevitably backfire on you, however much you think you can trust the people you are sharing it with.

9. Cultivate contacts outside work

As you rise through the firm, you will be expected to contribute much more than chargeable hours. The ability to bring in clients will set you apart from your peers, so get out there and network and start building your contacts list now.

10. Strive for work/life balance

There’s a lot of talk about how firms need to ensure their staff have the right work/life balance, but this responsibility starts with you. Get enough exercise, go for a walk and some fresh air during the working day, keep up your hobbies and make sure you take all your holidays. Work hard, but set your own boundaries and stick to them.

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How and when should you tell your training firm you are joining another firm on qualification?

How should you tell your training firm you are leaving? Who should you notify and when? We’re frequently asked these questions by NQs who have secured a new role on qualification and decided to leave.

Here’s a typical NQ scenario.

You’re about to qualify and have been offered a position as an associate at a firm other than your training firm. You want to accept.

Your training firm hasn’t yet notified you if they want to keep you on even though your qualification date is rapidly approaching. This has been a source of frustration for some months and has been a topic of endless discussion with your fellow trainees.

Part of you wants to tell your firm as soon as possible that you are leaving. But you feel guilty in a way, as if you are letting them down. You feel especially bad for one or two partners who have mentored you during your training contract.

Another part of you is annoyed that you are being taken for granted. If your existing firm has no qualms about waiting until the last minute to let you know, why should you not do the same to them?

Who should you tell, what should you say and when?

Before you do anything…

First of all, don’t say anything until you have a signed contract from your new firm. An offer is not enough, even if you have confirmed your acceptance. Sign on the dotted line before you do anything.

Also, if your training firm has paid your LPC fees or helped in another way towards your qualification, check that they are not entitled to claw money back if you leave upon qualification.

Now take a step back

You can do a lot worse at this stage than heed words of the famous Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius: “If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”

In brief, do and say the right thing. Remember, you are at the start of a career that you hope will be long and rewarding. Your reputation counts for a lot in law and once lost can be difficult to regain.

In practical terms, this means acting with responsibility and dignity.

So, tell your training partner and HR face-to-face as soon as possible. Be honest about your reasons. If it’s because you were fed up waiting to hear if you were being kept on, tell them. If it is to go to a more prestigious firm or do different work, explain this.

Don’t be under the illusion you are letting anyone down. Law firms are hard-nosed and commercial. People come and go for all sorts of reasons. They may be sorry to lose you (or at least say they are) but in all honesty they probably have far bigger concerns to worry about.

Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are somehow getting your own back by waiting until they tell you if you are being kept on before informing them that you are leaving. This does you no favours and isn’t fair on other trainees. It will come across as petty.

There’s a comment in a post on one of the legal news websites where the person commenting (named ‘Anon’, not surprisingly) recounts a tale of revenge from when they qualified. Anon explains how their training firm had a practice of not telling trainees if they were being kept on until after they qualified. Anon secured an NQ role before qualification and to give them a taste of their own medicine, didn’t notify the firm they were leaving.  Anon simply failed to turn up for work the day they qualified on the basis that their contract had expired. Here’s the kicker though. Anon had arranged a mediation with a client in another city for the day they qualified. No one from the firm attended the mediation (which the client went ahead with anyway) and the client later sued the firm for negligence. 

This may have made Anon feel good and is an excellent story, but at what cost? No doubt the firm was arrogant and unprofessional, but it reflects equally poorly on Anon. If it didn’t, they would not have been reticent to put their name to the comment rather than remain anonymous. 

You should aim to keep on good terms with the firm and the people who work there as you never know what is around the corner. You may end up working with some of the same people again either because you later join the same firm or as a result of a merger. You might deal with them on the other side of a transaction, or they may become in house counsel for one of your clients. You could even end up going back to the firm later in your career.

In a nutshell, be diplomatic. And in being diplomatic, take heed of the wise words of Winston Churchill: “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”

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Keeping your career options open is key to flexing your career

In a sector where it’s easy to be pigeonholed at a very early stage in one’s career, what can junior lawyers do to keep their options open? We asked legal careers coach Paula McMullan to offer some pearls of wisdom.

With 25 years’ experience as both a lawyer and a coach, (most recently as Head of Recruitment at Slaughter and May and as the internal careers coach at Allen & Overy LLP), Paula now helps dissatisfied lawyers find balance and fulfilment in their career.

Congratulations! You’ve survived your training contract, successfully navigated qualification and your legal career is laid out ahead of you like the Yellow Brick Road. So far, so good.

Now what?

I speak to a lot of mid-level and senior associates who get to 5 or 6 PQE and suddenly realise that their work/life balance isn’t great, and that they’ve fallen out of love with the law, or with the type of law they’re now practising. Maybe they’ve become too specialised, or they’re not getting involved in the type of work they’re really interested in. Or perhaps they’ve already decided that partnership is akin to being the little man in the booth pretending to be the Wizard of Oz.

Often more experienced lawyers find they have painted themselves into a corner and that it’s not as easy to transfer to an in-house role or another firm as they had imagined.

One thing is for sure…the future is uncertain. Whatever plans we may make now, it’s wise to build options for ourselves so that we’re well equipped to deal with change when it comes.

Before you get too far down the line with your legal career, here are three ways to give yourself more professional flexibility.

1. Develop your skills and knowledge with future roles in mind

When I ask lawyers what makes them unique and what they have to offer an employer, many find it difficult to talk about themselves. They give me underwhelming, generic answers, and they clearly have no idea of their value to a business or their ‘unique selling point’. If they can’t articulate this, what hope do they have of persuading a new employer?

It is therefore vital to develop your business skillset with one eye on future roles. For example, if you want to work in-house, what skills will you need to persuade a corporate to hire you out of private practice? How can you develop these while you are still working for a firm?

There are also a lot of flexible working opportunities for lawyers nowadays with outfits offering work on a contract basis. Does your specialism lend itself to working in this way? What skills and attributes do you have/want to develop that will enable you to flourish in that professional environment?

Lawyers tend to be quite detail-focused and they talk about their assets in isolation. Think, for example, about how your ability to analyse complex legal problems will benefit a corporate employer and put your skill into their context. How about saying you are used to assessing risks and advising on appropriate strategies to further your client’s business interests?

And be aware of the opportunities that may or may not be available to you once you are a few years into your legal career. What roles will a 4 PQE pensions lawyer or debt capital market specialist be suitable for?

A top tip from a recruitment consultant: if you’re thinking of a change in career direction, employers will want to see a commitment to that career change. So, if you want to move into learning and development, start designing and delivering seminars, read about learning strategies, find a mentor in L&D.

First steps? Find out what skills and experience will set you apart from the competition when you decide to go for another role. Work out who can help with finding out and then ask them!

2. Develop a sustainable approach to money

It can come as quite a shock to learn just how much of a drop in salary you may need to take to land your dream job outside private practice, or at least a stepping-stone role. The golden handcuffs that restrict many lawyers can seem unbreakable, so you need to change your approach to managing your financial resources.

It’s vital to work out your priorities – what’s most important to you right now? Maybe you are saving to buy your first property and you feel you need to keep going in your private practice role until that’s taken care of. Fair enough. But it’s also important to consider the downside of that strategy. What will the impact be on your mental health? Are you becoming even more specialised? If you get a large mortgage, will this compel you to keep your earnings at their current level?

Consider now the impact of different financial scenarios and develop a plan for tackling them. I knew when I was posted to Singapore, my ex-pat package would only last for a couple of years, so I lived on the same amount as I had in London and put the rest into my pension. When it came to leave, the resulting drop in salary wasn’t a shock. I didn’t need to recalibrate my lifestyle in line with my lower income.

First steps? Devise a sustainable financial plan. Talk to an independent financial adviser who can advise you on different ways to safeguard your assets and how to plan for a secure financial future while keeping your professional options open.

3. Separate your identity from your job

Have you noticed how, when asked what they do for a living, people often simply say “I’m a lawyer/doctor/architect/designer”? Our belief that “I am” a lawyer can get in the way if we become dissatisfied with our legal career because we can internalise that feeling as dissatisfaction with ourselves and our choices. This, in turn, can make it difficult to imagine ourselves as being able to do anything else, or being worthy of someone taking a chance on us.

Limiting beliefs like this can be quite deeply ingrained. You may have wanted to be a lawyer from an early age, maybe you have relatives who are successful lawyers and therefore feel that you should be too, or perhaps simply being surrounded by other lawyers day-in and day-out reinforces this belief. It served you well once because it got you to where you are today, but if you are no longer wedded to your career in its current form, then believing “I am a lawyer” can hold you back from realising your potential.

Think more in terms of what you do and the benefits you bring to your employer and your clients. Turn “I am a finance lawyer” into: “I help tech start-ups open up opportunities to develop by guiding them through successful negotiations with investors”.

First steps? Start noticing how you think about yourself professionally. How do you introduce yourself and talk about what you do? How can you reframe who you are into what you do?

As you’re reading this, you may think that none of this applies to you because you’re enjoying having reached qualification after so much study and hard work, and you’re looking forward to the challenge of growing into a great technical lawyer. But this brings us back to the start – the future is uncertain so why not make sure you are ready for it?

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Will the Big 4 accounting firms become major players in the UK legal market?

The Big 4 accounting firms are making aggressive inroads into the UK legal market and are committed to changing the sector’s landscape in the years ahead. In this blog, we examine their chances of success.

“The ambition is to be a significant player in the legal market.”

These were the words of Deloitte UK Legal’s new managing partner Michael Castle after he joined Deloitte from Allen & Overy earlier this year. His words echo similar sentiments in recent months from the other Big 4 accountancy firms, PwC, EY and KPMG.

The top law firms are taking the Big 4’s foray into the market seriously. Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick admits “they are a threat to firms in my strata. I wouldn’t underestimate them in any way.” 

Memery Crystal’s managing partner Nick Davis has similar concerns. “They will be very, very serious players in the market,” he says. “They have got such a strong client base and they are so good at integrating business services into their offering.”

Haven’t we been here before?

Back in the 1990s, the then Big 5 (the same four plus Arthur Andersen) were making very similar noises. But their attempts foundered following the Enron scandal and the subsequent disintegration of Arthur Andersen in 2002.

By that time, Andersen Legal had become the world’s ninth largest law firm by revenue. The scandal and subsequent concerns about audit firms offering non-audit services led to the accounting giants pulling back (though not withdrawing totally) from the legal sector. The magic circle and large US firms expanded to fill the void, and it seemed that the rise of the Big 4 in the legal market had been seen off.

Not so, says Professor Wilkins, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. “The legal profession thought they’d banished [the Big 4] to Middle Earth, but in fact, they reformulated their strategy to take advantage of changing dynamics.”

So, what’s the strategy?

“Our model is not to go head to head with law firms. We offer something different,” says Nick Roome, head of KPMG’s UK legal services business. This is the same for all the Big 4, who seek to combine legal advice with advice across other disciplines such as accounting, tax, compliance and due diligence. It’s a service offering that law firms simply can’t compete with.

Financial muscle and investment in technology

The Big 4 have other enormous advantages over even the largest global law firms. One is financial muscle. The revenue of the world’s two largest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, is around US$3.5bn, a sum that is dwarfed by the Big 4, whose revenues are approximately ten times this amount.

The Big 4 have shown that they are willing to invest all this money is new technology, something law firms have been slow to do in comparison.

EY calls itself as “a leading disruptor of legal industries” and put its money where its mouth is last year when it bought legal innovation company Riverside Law for an undisclosed amount. Riverview is best known for developing an AI programme that can perform legal tasks normally performed by paralegals. It will, says EY, “help clients to increase efficiency, manage risk, improve service transparency and reduce costs of routine legal activities”.

KMPG meanwhile employs nearly 200 software developers whose sole job is to develop digital software. And PwC has a joint innovation lab with Google in Belfast whose goal is to develop new global client solutions. Even the largest law firms can’t come close to competing with this.

A client base to die for

Another key advantage the Big 4 have is the fact that between them they control 60% of the accounting sector and their clients include 95% of  FTSE 350 companies. In other words, they already act for most of the clients the leading law firms are fighting over.

They have a geographic advantage too. The Big 4 have a presence in more than 80 legal markets around the world, whereas the top 10 law firms are only represented in 31. Not satisfied with this, in recent years the Big 4 have made a sustained push into the legal sectors of emerging economies, with EY and PwC, in particular, recruiting heavily in Asian jurisdictions.

So, should junior lawyers think about joining a Big 4 firm? They would be wise to consider it. PwC currently employers 2,500 lawyers worldwide, a similar number to Clifford Chance. KPMG employs 2,200, EY 2,100 and Deloitte 1,800. And numbers are rising. The Big 4 are starting to poach lawyers from leading firms and have made lateral hires in recent years from several top UK firms including Allen & Overy, Addleshaw Goddard and Clifford Chance.

Deloitte’s Michael Castle said following his appointment as managing partner in March that the firm is in sustained hiring mode. The firm is seeking lawyers across its corporate, employment and tax litigation practices, all areas where the firm is already strong and getting stronger.

“The immediate plan is to build the legal capability,” says Castle, “and to tie that up with other aspects of Deloitte Legal like the consulting, the alternative legal services and the technology products to deliver legal solutions to clients.”

Traditional firms have been warned. It will be interesting to see if the Big 4 get it right this time around and, if they do, how the world’s leading law firms react.


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What they don’t teach newly qualified solicitors at law school

Starting your first job as a newly qualified solicitor is an exciting time, but it can be an anxious one too. In this blog, we offer some practical tips you didn’t learn at law school that can help you get off to the best possible start to your legal career.

Mark Twain had some advice for anyone starting a new job: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” Unfortunately, ignorance won’t get you far in the law and it’s fair to assume you have a bit of legal knowledge if you have reached this far.

But that doesn’t mean you are expected to be the finished article on day one. The best lawyers are the ones who accept that they don’t know everything and never stop learning. You may have ‘Associate’ written on your business card, but you still have a long way to go.

If your chosen area of law is one you covered in an earlier seat, get up to date with changes to the law that have taken place in the meantime.

Help!

Above all, don’t be afraid to ask colleagues and partners for help. The temptation is not to do this for fear of showing yourself up. But it is far better to ask than give the client the wrong advice and make a costly mistake.

Context

Not being scared also goes for clarifying instructions you receive from one of the partners or one of your superiors. One of the biggest challenges for newly qualifieds, especially when joining transactions or cases after they have started, is to understand the background.

What may be obvious to the person asking you to carry out a task may mean nothing to you. Don’t be timid about asking them to explain what the client is trying to achieve and the context of what you are doing. Context can relate to any number of things: where your task fits into the transaction or case as a whole, how time critical it is and how important this task is compared to others you have at hand.

This links to another crucial point. You should be trying to make a positive impression by being hungry to take on new work and making yourself available to help out anyone who asks (even if, or especially if, this may seem menial to someone of your newly elevated status).

Too many masters

The danger is you take on too much. As Homer said: “If you serve too many masters, you’ll soon suffer.” Be cautious about taking on too much as you don’t want to have so much on your plate that you end up doing it poorly or too slowly. Make sure you are organised, clear about deadlines and do the most critical work first even if this isn’t necessarily for the person who shouts the loudest.

Explain it as if to your Nan

Above all, be practical. If someone asks you to do research or you need to write to a client with some advice, don’t present it like a law school essay. As Katherine Cousins said in her blog, The top 5 mistakes to avoid as a junior lawyer, “think about it like you’re trying to explain the problem and the solution to your Nan (unless your Nan is a Supreme Court judge)”.

No schoolboy/schoolgirl errors

Being practical also means avoiding silly mistakes such as typos or forgetting enclosures or attachments. If you’ve worked hard on a thorny legal issue you may be so pleased with yourself you forget to spell check a piece of advice or a note for a partner. Sadly (and possibly unfairly), sloppiness can overshadow good work and a reputation for it can be hard to shake off.

Make friends and try to find a mentor

Make friends. You’re going to spend a long time at work, and it will be so much more enjoyable if you are surrounded by people you like and who like you. You can help each other out and share your good and bad experiences. In the first few weeks, it’s a good idea to clear your diary so that you are available for drinks after work, firm events or networking with clients so that you can get to know people in a more relaxed environment.

Also, try to find a mentor, someone senior in your department you look up to and respect. Some firms have formal mentor programmes but if they don’t, try to find your own. It’s invaluable having the ear of someone who has seen and done it all having been in your shoes not so long ago.

Above all, enjoy it.

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