How SQE2 is marked: grades, weighting and the 16 assessments

Sixteen assessments, graded A to F and converted to five marks down to zero. How skills and application of law are weighted, where ethics counts, and what standard you are being held to.

Published

SQE2 is 16 assessments: four oral over two half-days, and twelve written over three. Every criterion in all of them is graded A to F, converted to 5 marks down to 0, against one standard — the just-competent Day One solicitor.

The grades

A trained assessor makes a global professional judgement on each criterion. The six bands:

| Grade | Band | Marks | | --- | --- | --- | | A | Superior performance — well above the competency requirements | 5 | | B | Clearly satisfactory — clearly meets them | 4 | | C | Marginal pass — on balance, just meets them | 3 | | D | Marginal fail — on balance, just fails to meet them | 2 | | E | Clearly unsatisfactory — clearly does not meet them | 1 | | F | Poor performance — well below them | 0 |

Skills and law are weighted equally

Each station's criteria are divided into skills and application of law. Across all of SQE2 those two halves are weighted equally in your final mark, so that the quality of the advice carries as much as the manner of delivering it.

Two consequences people miss:

  • Ethics counts inside application of law. It is not a separate strand, and it is not optional.
  • The number of criteria in a station is not its weighting. Advocacy has five skills criteria and three on law; that is the shape of one grid, not of your result.

Who marks what

| Assessment | Marked by | Marked on | | --- | --- | --- | | Client interview | The assessor playing the client | Skills only | | Attendance note | A solicitor | Skills and application of law | | Advocacy | The solicitor playing the judge | Skills and application of law | | All written assessments | A solicitor | Skills and application of law |

The interview is the only part of SQE2 where your law is not being scored. Everything else, including the note you write immediately after it, is.

The 16 assessments

Oral — two half-days, four assessments

| Day 1 | Day 2 | | --- | --- | | Advocacy (Dispute Resolution) | Advocacy (Criminal Litigation) | | Interview and attendance note (Property Practice) | Interview and attendance note (Wills and Administration of Estates) |

Written — three half-days, twelve assessments

Each day carries all four written skills — case and matter analysis, legal drafting, legal research and legal writing. Day 1 covers Dispute Resolution and Criminal Litigation, Day 2 Property Practice and Wills, and Day 3 is entirely Business Law and Practice.

Candidates may sit the assessments in different orders, so you cannot count on a particular one coming first.

What standard, exactly

You are expected to apply fundamental legal principles to the situation in front of you — not to know detail a newly qualified solicitor would look up. The specification puts it as having enough knowledge to be competent to practise on the basis that you can look up the detail later. Where detail is needed, it is supplied in the assessment materials.

Two further boundaries worth knowing:

  • Examinable content is a subset of SQE1's Functioning Legal Knowledge, set out in Annex 1.
  • Not examined in SQE2: Legal Systems, Legal Services apart from money laundering and financial services, and Solicitors' Accounts.

Ethics is pervasive and never flagged

The specification says it directly: ethics and professional conduct are pervasive throughout SQE2, and the issues will not be flagged. There is no prompt. Finding the conduct point in the papers is part of what is being assessed, and in most stations it is a criterion of its own.

Preparing against it

Knowing how the marks work only pays if it changes what you practise — how to prepare for SQE2 sets out an order of work built around these criteria.

Seeing it marked for yourself

The SRA publishes worked samples with assessor commentary against these criteria, and a set of Performance Indicators showing what competent and non-competent work looks like on each one — what the SRA publishes and how to use it.

The law cut-off date

You are examined on the law as it stood four calendar months before the first assessment date in the sitting. A change in the law inside that window is not examinable.

Sources