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SQE2 - to do a prep course or not?

Hi,

I did my degree in law, did LPC recently and have almost 5 years’ experience as a paralegal. I’m debating whether to do SQE2 course or not. Does anyone have any experience of passing SQE without doing a course? If so, how did you find it?

Reply 1

Mhai

Long answer, but I hope it helps any past and future SQE takers.
I did the SQE1 and SQE2 prep with Barbri. I also had a law degree and more than 3 years practicing law. I would say that some kind of prep course is an absolute must, unless you can really find some resources that gives you a lot of practice and a lot of feedback.
SQE 2 specifically is composed of the orals (advocacy and interviewing) and written exams (case and matter analysis, legal drafting, legal; research, legal writing). The exams are generally quite hard, and everyone has found them nerve-racking. US solicitors have said that SQE2 it's worse than the bar. But don't let that scare you. With enough effort put in you can pass easily.
Starting with the written tests, are very diverse. They range from only needing to know basic law to requiring a pretty comprehensive understanding of the subjects, up to the smallest details, in order to be able to fully answer the questions. Case and Matter Analysis and Writing need teh most law knowledge. For research, arguably not much law is necessary, but you definitely need some practice with navigating through all the docs that might be offering and synthesising the information. Drafting, in most cases you just need to remember a few formulations and a few rules for board or shareholder resolutions for business for example. But just remember skills are important in all of these exams, so even if the subject is completely unknown to you, make the law up but respect the structure etc so at least you get some skills marks.
For orals, in advocacy for example, you absolutely must know the tests for a number of applications for dispute resolution or for criminal (max 10 each or so), such as application for costs, or application for bail, etc. These are things that they don't teach you in law school. In addition to knowing the test for these application, you must have the correct structure for your 15 min speech, and must be able use all/most of information that is given to you in the prep bundle, which can be quite a lot. You definitely need a lot of prep with advocacy, and you need to find someone with the necessary knowledge to listen to you and be able to give you the right feedback. A book will not give you that. You recording yourself will also not give you that.
Interviewing is arguably easier, however you really need to know the law to know what questions you need to ask, otherwise you'll run out of questions very easily. You are not tested on the law in interviewing, however you are tested on gathering all the right information from the client, so if you don't know the law you'll struggle with that also. And you also need the correct structure, to come off in a certain way etc.
I am happy to help with practicing any of the oral skills - advocacy or interviewing. I'll be listening to you and give feedback on how you've done and how you can improve, both the law and the skills part. I offer this as a service, so get in touch if interested.