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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jonty" data-source="post: 820" data-attributes="member: 41">Continued here due to the character count limit.Session 3 The afternoon session had an intense two hour session on the SQE.To begin with Julie Brannan (Director of Education at SRA) began with a discussion about why the SQE is necessary. She highlighted the big drop-off of student numbers between graduation with a law degree and commencing the LPC, pushing forwards the idea that whilst some of these graduates will have simply chosen a career outside of traditional law, it is unacceptable that the current method of LPC/TC means many will simply not be in a position to take a gamble, thus those of a certain social class will be discouraged from pursuing a career in law. She also highlighted the LPC pass-rate of white candidates (80%), Asian candidates (50%) and Black candidates (40%) as further proof that change is necessary to try to counter-balance the current situation.However, details were light on the ground as to what the SQE will consist of. We know it'll be 2 parts with 2 years of qualifying experience necessary. The 2nd part may be more focused on practical skills picked up by the experience, so in theory it would be done at the end of the qualifying period. The qualifying period is still up in the air, but it seems experience gained under the supervision of a qualified solicitor will be enough. In short; the SQE is coming but nobody seems to know what it'll be.After this it got fun (or irritiating depending on which side of the fence you sit on) as Thom Brooks (Dean of Durham Law School) had a rant about how the SQE is similar to Brexit - nobody asked for it and the details as to how it'll happen are nil; SQE means SQE. After this, Richard Moorhead (Chair of Law & Professional Ethics at UCL) stood up and similarly offered a criticism of the SQE; how nobody really knows what is going to happen or what the effect will be. He called for a slow transition into it, a testing of areas alongside the current system. Crispin Rapinet (Training Principal at Hogan Lovells) similarly echoed the criticisms of this approach to change within the industry. He stated it's impossible to move forwards and plan without any detail.Maeve Lavelle (Director of Education & Community Programmes at Neota Logic) offered a different perspective on the SQE's introduction, talking about how change is necessary within the industry from both a social perspective (given the increasing lack of access to justice but also diversity issues within law) as well as discussing the need for cognitive diversity within the industry, which is unlikely to happen quickly or at all if change isn't embraced. She drove home the point that change isn't something the legal industry does quickly and that the SRA seemingly taking a backward step from being hands-on involved in regulating universities/law firms over SQE actually indicates a smart move on their part, a nod to the fact that regulators in most industries struggle to keep up with change.After this we heard more of the same criticisms of the SQE from Chris Howard (Professor of Legal Education at KCL), a discussion on the importance of pro bono projects from Linden Thomas (CEPLER Manager at Birmingham Uni) and a general talk about the value of a law degree from Andrew Francis (Professor of Law at Leeds Uni).Session 4The final session of the day was quite interesting and featured a panel discussion of apprenticeships are affecting other industries and what training/development is happening within them. Euan Blair (CEO of Whitehat), Keily Blair (Director of Regulatory & Commercial Disputes/Head of Legal Training at PwC), Iain Gallagher (Senior Manager of Emerging Talent at Santander), Sam Harper (GC at Deliveroo) and Samuel Gordon (Research Analyst at Institute of Student Employers) had a general discussion about the pros and cons of apprenticeships, and whether the legal sector would introduce them or not. I'm not really going to detail out the points because my notes are pretty crap from this section of the day and also I'm not sure how relevant it'd be to you lot given your aspirations but the end takeaway from this session was that apprenticeships can be great or terrible, it depends on the person. More firms should do it as it can encourage social mobility far more than most other initiatives but it seems unlikely we'll see the legal sector introduce them in any meaningful manner._______________________________________________________________________________To be honest with you guys, it was a really great event and I was pretty lucky to be brought along to it. A lot of influential people were there to speak to and a lot of differing opinions to be heard.The one thing that really struck me though was made apparent in Session 3. A lot of people talk about the need for change in the industry but when it comes down to it, people don't really want it to happen because it may threaten what they have now. I got the impression, from sitting in that room and listening to senior legal figures mocking the SQE and the SRA within the safe confines of the echo chamber of the conference, that it didn't matter what changes were really submitted, if they were wholesale then they would find criticisms of it and paint it as bad.Not to try to defend the SRA, as I think they're doing a pretty poor job of selling the SQE given the total lack of information they are releasing, but I think the approach they're taking (drastic changes) are a better way of doing it than minor tweaks here and there. There isn't much to dispute that the current system favours a certain background (ethnic, class and educational) and that this needs to be combated. A major overhaul followed by tweaks to actually make it work is, in my opinion, a more realistic approach to solving the current issue than to try it the other way round.Anyway, thought I'd throw my two cents in at the end there, hopefully there is some information within this entire post that people find useful on how law firms are thinking about the future.</blockquote>

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