SQE2 Overview
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The SQE2 assessment evaluates you practical legal skills across six core areas: client interview and attendance note or legal analysis, advocacy, case and matter analysis, legal research, legal writing, and legal drafting. Although negotiation is not a distinct assessment in SQE2, it is integrated into other tasks, such as client interviews, case and matter analysis, or legal writing. The assessment is divided into oral (two half days) and written (three half days) components. You will need to attend the test centre for a total of five half-days.
Practice Areas and Legal Foundations
The legal skills in SQE2 are assessed within five key practice areas:
- Criminal Litigation, including advising clients at the police station and incorporates principles of criminal liability.
- Dispute Resolution, drawing on underlying principles of contract law and tort.
- Property Practice, focusing on land law and its application in real estate matters.
- Wills and Intestacy, Probate Administration, and Practice, drawing on trusts law to evaluate your ability to manage estates effectively.
- Business Organisations, Rules, and Procedures, including elements of contract law as well as issues related to money laundering and financial services.
Professionalism and ethics are embedded throughout the SQE2 assessment, and you are expected to identify and address ethical issues without explicit prompts. Integrity and honesty are essential components of this evaluation.
Taxation and Examinable Content
Taxation-related questions may appear in Property Practice, Wills and Intestacy, and Business Organisations. The examinable content in SQE2 is detailed in Annex 1, which serves as a subset of the Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK) covered in SQE1. Topics such as the legal system of England and Wales, constitutional and administrative law, EU law, and solicitors accounts are not examined in SQE2, except for money laundering and financial services in the context of business organisations.
Cut-off Date for the Law Examined
You will be tested on the law as it stands four calendar months before the first assessment date in an assessment window. Any changes to the law implemented up to and including that date are examinable. This means you must be prepared to answer questions based on the law as it stands up to and including that specific cut-off date. However, developments in the law beyond that date will not be assessed.
SQE2 Oral Assessment
The oral assessments are conducted over two half days and test client interviewing, attendance note completion, and advocacy skills across four oral exams. Day 1 covers civil advocacy, dispute resolution, and property practice, while Day 2 focuses on criminal advocacy, criminal litigation, and wills, intestacy, and probate administration, with each including a client interview, attendance note, and legal analysis.
SQE2 Written Assessment
The written assessments span three half days and assess legal research, writing, drafting, and case and matter analysis across five areas of law. Day 1 tests dispute resolution and criminal litigation; Day 2 covers property practice and wills, intestacy, and probate administration; and Day 3 focuses on business organisations, rules, and procedures.
The SQE2 assessment is designed to test practical legal skills and their application within fundamental legal principles across core practice areas. It incorporates ethics and professionalism as pervasive elements and emphasises current, well-defined legal knowledge to prepare you for the realities of practice as a newly qualified solicitor.
