Deal qualification for legal

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hello and welcome to the next in our series of webinars on the sisters qualifying examination or the sqe i hope you're all doing okay in lockdown my life outside work seems to be an endless series of trips to cold muddy parks but with spring coming i'm optimistic that i'm going to look forward now to an endless series of trips to warmer muddy parks now today's session is about qualifying work experience now to avoid us saying the phrase qualifying work experience an annoying amount of times we may use the shorthand qwe throughout this webinar and today's session is going to be covering qwe from the law firm's perspective or an employer's perspective now i'd like to flag if you haven't been to one of these sessions before it'd be worth you having a look on our youtube channel because we actually do have a number of webinars about qualifying work experience we're also due to do one from a candidate perspective in the next month and also i'd flag up it's very much worth visiting sra.org dot uk forward slash sqe um for resources on qualifying work experience there's some useful visuals as well as guidance on what we expect around qualifying work experience today we're going to be focusing on four key themes firstly what is qualifying work experience secondly what it means for training contracts and opportunities for firms thirdly confirming qualifying work experience who decides what counts as qwe and then fourthly um the issue of sort of quality and some practical tips now we've already had quite a lot of questions um come in um we're going to be incorporating those throughout this webinar um if you saw our recent common questions webinar that's the one where richard and i embarrassingly wore the same outfit and we've coordinated not to coordinate today we'll be covering quite a lot of similar ground and that's very much in response to we're getting similar themes and similar questions uh coming in but we do also have the option for live questions you can submit them by clicking on the link below put your question through and we'll do our best to answer as many as we can i can confidently say you can ask whatever you want because i'll be asking the questions rather than answering them and that's why i'm joined by my colleague richard williams who's led on developing the resources and guidance in this area and he's going to be answering those questions and doing most of the talking in this session before we get sort of stuck into the detail let's firstly remind ourselves what the solicitor's qualifying exam is and how qualifying work experience fits into that so the sq is the new way of qualifying that it comes into effect in september this year qualifying work experience as you can see from the jigsaw there on the screen makes up one of the four pieces of the puzzle so to speak so the other three pieces are you need a degree or equivalent an equivalent is something like an apprenticeship secondly you need to pass the sqe one and two assessments sqe1 tests practical legal knowledge and sqe 2 tests a combination of practical legal knowledge and practical legal skills and also you need to meet our character and suitability requirements so without all those four pieces you can't qualify so let's move on to qualifying work experience so richard can you quickly remind people what is qwe thanks ben um in terms of what qualifying work experience is any individual wishing to be admitted as a solicitor once the sqe is introduced will need to complete a period of qualifying work experience so qwe is any experience of providing legal services which enables an individual to develop some or all of the competencies outlined in our statement of solicitor competence um i know that we've had a quite a number of questions sort of pre-submitted about whether particular job titles or location of where qualifying work experience is obtained can count as qualifying work experience so just to clarify those qualified work experience can be tamed obtained here or abroad in any role or title it can be paid or unpaid so long as that experience involves providing legal services and develops the individual exposure to some or all of the competencies and how long is the period of qualifying work experience it must be a total of two years working full-time or the equivalent on a part-time basis now we're not going to prescribe what part-time equivalent is we know that many firms have their own approaches and their own calculations as to what constitutes uh part-time so they're much better place to make that decision than we are in terms of kind of length a qualified work experience can be obtained in up to four separate organizations providing legal services so there is no minimum or maximum prescribed length for each of those those placements and we've had one of our uh one of the first questions we've had come in is from lauren and she's asked whether qwe can predate um taking sqe one and we've had a similar question from adana as well uh the answer to that is is yes yes it can but we don't think that will be typical we think that most candidates will we'll do that qualifying work experience before between taking sqe1 and sqe2 but there's nothing to stop it being done beforehand um i think the key point here and it goes back to the jigsaw slide really is that you know qualifying working experience needs to be completed before qualification um the most likely scenario for it might be might be someone like a paralegal who has already had years of experience wanting to claim qualifying work experience before they do their first exam so um qualifying work experience can involve any experience of providing legal services that gives an individual exposure to the competencies but is there anything that actually isn't unlikely or is unlikely sorry to be qualifying work experience so we're not going to prescribe what constitutes qualifying work experience um as long as you know it meets our criteria and those criteria are that there is an opportunity for exposure to some or all of the competencies it meets the time criteria that i've we've just talked about and as long as it can be signed off by a solicitor or a compliance officer for legal practice and we'll come on to that um later then it is more than likely to count as qualifying work experience however i think there are probably a couple of circumstances where someone's experience is unlikely to count as qualifying work experience and the first one of those is that exposure to an ongoing single repetitive and very limited task for the duration of someone's placement is unlikely to be qualified work experience so for example you know proofreading for 24 months is unlikely to give an individual exposure to summer all of the competencies in our statement of solicitor competence and then i suppose the second scenario where um it may not count is that of um simulated legal services you know we've been quite clear the qualifying work experience is about being involved in real life solicitors work you know it's designed to give candidates experience to kind of those real life challenges and issues the ethical situations that solicitors might well find themselves in so on that basis we've said that you know stimulated legal services are is unlikely to count as qualifying work experience so thanks richard we've had another question come in and it's from someone if someone works outside an organization that isn't gaining sort of experience in a traditional law firm setting you know with solicitors and clients is it still possible to gain qualifying work experience by the looks of it in this setting for instance it's a not-for-profit organization um absolutely the key the key point to really kind of uh for people to to understand is that you know you can obtain your qualifying work experience in any any org you know any organization um providing legal services so long as you know you're getting exposure to some or all of the competencies so you know um getting uh ex exposure in house is valid getting in a traditional law firm is equally valid or in the kind of not-for-profit sector law clinics or even a non-regulated business that's all okay so long as you're meeting our criteria for qualifying work experience so we've had another question come in someone who wants to clarify whether if they only have experience of some of the competencies is that enough or do they have to go off and try and fill the gaps where they haven't had exposure to some competencies i mean the the simple answer to that that to that ben is is yes um i suppose you know in an ideal world the more exposure to the more competencies you have you know the better chance you may well have of of understanding what is going to be assessed in the sqe too but but it's not essential some people might well uh to take a particular placement that gives them exposure to some some of the competencies and then try and seek them out elsewhere or or do some additional training but you know the simple answer is is yes so and just probably the way i asked the question i want to avoid any confusion there actually when we say yes is that's answering you don't need to have a role which gets exposure to all the competencies all at once as long as you have a role that exposes you to some of the competencies that counts as qualifying work experience and i think the the point we're making is that you um you you'll need to think about that that ideally you want to get exposure to as many if not all of the competencies because that's going to help you when it comes to taking the sqe assessments now probably on a point and we're going to talk about this later but we've had a question just come in from andrew and i think it's relevant he's asked what is the position of the sra if after providing qualifying work experience a trainee or firm has serious concerns about the trainees capabilities and we'll come on to that um sort of a bit on theme number three when we talk about confirming but i think the key point there richard isn't it firms aren't signing off whether for one of better terms someone is going to make a great solicitor or even whether they think they're competent absolutely one of you know the fundamental points you know in terms of sign off is that you know a solid solicitor or compliance officer for legal practice is just simply confirming the details of the placement whether there was exposure to some or all of the competencies and whether there are any particular characteristics issues they are not making assessment of competence in the scenario that you've given there you know if someone's got a particular issue with someone's capabilities we'd expect that to be picked up you know with ongoing conversations between the firm and the individual as part of a firm's wider obligation regulatory obligation to effectively supervise members their employees essentially to make sure that they're competent to carry out the role they keep the professional knowledge and skills up today and as well as they've got all the the right legal ethical and regulatory understanding so you know that that's an issue for for the firm and the individual um to be dealt with through their kind of existing supervision and i suppose the point to add to that is that that's why the sqe is there that if somebody um if the serious questions about their competence then that's what sqe1 and sqe2 is there to pick up and in particular if somebody hasn't got the practical legal skills or knowledge there's a very rigorous assessment um in particular sqe 2 where there's a range of written and oral tasks that you're going to struggle probably to pass that if you have um you know there are issues related to competence only people who are good enough are going to pass that assessment so we've got one final question before we move on to our second theme are there any other things that firms need to think about before before we go on to some more of the detail anything else you've missed richard um i think it's just to perhaps reiterate that point around a firm's wider an existing regulator obligations in the code of conduct just to make sure that you know they ha that all their employees are competent to carry out their role and to keep their professional knowledge and up-to-date and to effectively supervise because you know that that essentially sort of you know predates qualifying work experience but equally you know it needs to be taken into account if you have individuals working for you who may want to claim qualifying work experience as well you know we very much expect those those obligations to be upheld that's great so let's move on to our second theme and that is in particular focusing on the training contracts and some of the opportunities for firms so let's pick up the training contract point we've had a question from jenny she's asked does the training contract no longer exist in the new system it's a really good question and we're getting that question an awful lot so this is a really good opportunity for us to clarify um some of our thinking so the introduction of qualifying work experience replaces the training contract as a regulatory requirement for admission once the sqe is introduced we think this is advantageous for individual individuals it should mean that the training contract bottleneck we all know about and which is associated with kind of barriers to current qualification is removed because there's a lot greater flexibility as to where individuals can get their experience and for a wider range of organizations to offer opportunities for individuals to get that experience and we mentioned some at the very beginning of this webinar um from a firm perspective we expect the firms will adopt a variety of approaches to how they approach qwe in light of that requirement being removed and some will continue to offer a training contract once the sq is introduced while others will reconsider their position and come up with alternative approaches um but i think you know the final point is that it's not a requirement or a regulatory requirement for a firm to offer a training contract and it's not a regulatory requirement for an individual to get a training contract in order to to qualify and be admitted as a solicitor so that that's clear so there is a period of time during which people can still qualify through the um the old lpc routes um do they still need a training contract or what um is often referred to as the period of recognized training if an individual wants to qualify for the old kind of lpc route as we know and not take any of the sqe assessments yes you will still need a period of recognized training or what's known as as the the training contracts so um if anyone isn't sure um whether a candidate or an individual can still do the lpc route i think the starting point for both an individual and a firm who may well have you know employees working from in this particular situation is is to go and look at our transitional arrangements you know um there's a lot of detail there and it will really explain what situations apply in which particular circumstances we've also got previous webinars on that so you know encourage people to to go and have a look at those but you know kind of at the most basic level if someone has started on their training journey by september this year that they have a choice to qualify qualify through the lpc or the sqe and so you mentioned that qualifying work experience that there's opportunities there for individuals with the greater flexibility but what are some of the opportunities or potential benefits for firms that they might want to consider okay there's less prescription with qualifying work experience as there is with the current period of recognized uh training so i think that that means that there's more benefits for firms to be to be obtained so for example there's much greater flexibility now for firms to to think about and really tailor their approaches to training and development of employees in line with their business objectives and their business model than previously so for instance now you know you don't have to rotate seats you can focus on the areas of law which are relevant to your business it's also an opportunity for firms to think about their approach to how they attract potential future you know kind of employers you know do they want a different type of individual do they want to try and attract a high caliber a higher caliber individual and if so what role does qualifying work experience play in doing that can they use their qualifying work experience provision as a unique selling point for their firm in order to try and recruit the the best talent so there's lots to think about in you know for a firm in terms of how they sell their you know their business as a place to come and work and i think you know there's also opportunities for firms that perhaps haven't haven't traditionally taken on trainees in the past you know they might want to think about whether this increased flexibility changes their position and whether or not they want to offer any any opportunities going forward in line with their business objectives that's really helpful and we've had a question coming from helen um linked to this under the current approach um an individual doing a training contract is called a trainee what can a firm call someone who's carrying out qualifying work experience okay as i mentioned just a few moments ago um you know there is no formal regulatory requirement for a training contract at the moment and so there is sort of no formal regulatory uh title for an individual who's undertaking qualifying work experience you know it's not possible for us to come up with a single title for any particular role given that there is much more diversity and flexibility in where individuals can obtain their qualifying work experience i mean one a single title would be very difficult to cover that multitude of of potential scenarios so what someone is called when they're completing their qualifying work experience is more than likely going to reflect what's in their employment contract or role title rather than us as a regulator prescribe a particular title so you know a firm can continue to call a trainee solicitor a trainee solicitor if they want or they can come up with another title um i suppose you know the kind of final point an important point on this is that you can't refer to an individual as a solicitor until that individual has been admitted okay and we've got a question that's sort of on the flip side of that as what about when someone progresses through an organization and then they qualify and for example someone who's worked as a paralegal do they then have to be called a solicitor okay again this is a really sort of common question so it's a good opportunity to clarify our position so if an individual is admitted as a solicitor they can still be employed by a firm as in this situation a paralegal they will however need to have a practicing certificate you know the title of their role again is a matter for a firm you know we are unlikely to interfere or get involved unless you know perhaps their title may is misleading to clients you know i think you know the advice perhaps for firms is the as with the current approach to qualification is for them to have ongoing conversations with their um with their trainees during that kind of period of qualification about the potential roles and opportunities that might be available under admission you know you know and an individual and a firm might well agree to to perhaps hold off submitting an application for qualification till a specified date that would be fine that's a matter for that individual and that organization but once submitted you know they will become a solicitor although you know as we've discussed they could be their title could well not be solicited now um some firms may be listening to this and thinking well it's sort of interesting but ultimately this isn't relevant to me i'm not planning on taking on new staff you know might be perfectly understandable in the current environment they might not be looking to train people up but actually this change even for someone in that position does have the potential to be immediately relevant to firms and solicitors doesn't it everyone needs to be aware of this change absolutely um absolutely i mean even if you you you're for whatever reason not thinking about the opportunities that you know qualifying work experience may well bring to to your business you will still need to be aware and understand about qualifying work experience because i think the key point is that you may well be approached by a previous employee or a previous trainee who has undertaken some experience at your organization and is now looking for that period or that placement to be confirmed so you need to think about well how are you going to manage that process you know who's going to be involved who's going to be involved what's he going to look like if indeed someone does um does come to you and say please can you confirm this qualifying work experience you might also want to think about you know what are you going to say to new non-solicitor members of staff about how you're going how your approach to qualifying work experiences and wider sqe training um but i think the fundamental point is that you know you're it's good to to be able to have answers to these questions and have good open ongoing conversations with existing staff or those that might approach you about how you will you know how your process and your approach to these questions that's great richard and i'm looking at the questions coming in and thank you for those who are sending them and there's a number i think we'll be able to pick up as we go through and the various themes but one that has just come in um has asked to make sure all competencies are met can a person train longer than two years is there flexibility around that um absolutely you know you know all we're saying is the qualifying work experience from our from from a from our perspective in terms of a regulatory requirement needs to be a minimum of two years yeah so you could you could decide and if your firm decided actually yeah we want to do three years before qualification you'd have that conversation up front with the trainee or the paralegal or whoever the person relevant person is and take it from there so let's move on to our third big theme and this is one we get lots of queries about and this is confirming qw qwe and deciding who decides what is qwe so on that question richard who determines what is a qualifying work experience placement is it for firm to say they're offering qwe or actually is it more about an individual claiming qwen okay and you're totally right but you know we get an awful lot of sort of questions around this i think the really the most important consideration here is not whether qualifying work experience is offered but whether the work an individual has carried out has exposed them to some or all of the competencies and that they can demonstrate this so in practice we think most non-qualified lawyers in firms will have at least some exposure to certain tasks and experience as part of their role or wider career progression that will give them the opportunity to have exposure to to some of all of the competencies so if an individual can demonstrate this and can evidence it then you know they are in a very strong position in order to be able to claim that for the purposes of of becoming a solicitor irrespective of whether or not it's been officially offered their placement has been officially offered um as a qualifying work experience placement or not you know that being said you know it's not for us as the sra to determine whether placement meets our criteria you know we're clear on what that criteria is um but i think other than that what you know it's really important that individuals and firms have conversations from the outset about what is you know about expectations as to what the role may well provide in terms of qualifying work experience and i think that in doing that you know a lot of you know you know the potential um kind of misunderstandings or you know will be avoided because there will be a shared understanding that actually yes the period that i'm working with you i'll get exposure to particular types of competencies and that will be qualifying work experience and so this really is a shift in mindset i suppose and it's very much a deliberate change by the sra so whereas previously whether a firm was going to offer a training contract was pretty much 100 in the gift of the firm an organization there's more much more of a balance to this approach there is and you know there is and there's more i suppose responsibility on an individual as well to make sure that they can evidence the work that they're doing meeting some all of the competencies but you know there's probably two reasons for the change you know we've already talked a little bit about the training contract bottleneck and and that just means that lots of potentially competent people are unable to qualify because they simply can't get a training contract you know what they're left with is you know tens of thousands of pounds of debt from the lpc but but they can't they can't become a solicitor so you know that that's one what one reason for this change the other is is that by introducing the sqe you know we've got a very clear consistent robust check on the competence of anyone becoming a solicitor so you know we're moving away from the scenario where we've got 2 000 plus firms assessing whether or not they think an individual is competent to to you know to the sqe which is you know a single robust assessment of whether someone meets the standards we and the public expect so um i've just seen a question come in and it's sort of on it's sort of a point in a question but it's on that particular theme of competency somebody said oh well i'll read the question and then i'll go answering it richard and then see what see what you think um so this person's saying you seem to suggest that qualifying work experience is not about competency if so why is it needed i think um i would say to that actually we're not saying at all that qualifying work experience isn't about competency what it isn't about though is testing competency and somebody make somebody signing off as you just mentioned more than 2 000 firms all making their own judgment as to whether somebody has met the expected standard of competence and that's the reason is the test of competence has shifted onto sqe 1 and sqe 2 that's the check of whether someone is competent enough but actually i think when we consulted richard on sqe and there were several years of conversation i think there was strong feedback that people thought that element of work experience was important in people getting to develop the competencies learn what it takes to be a solicitor developing that sort of professionalism and ethics and getting exposure to the types of skills and knowledge that then is ultimately going to be tested through sql one and in particular sqe 2. it would that be fair richard in terms of pic answering that question no i think that's that's a really accurate kind of uh overview ben yeah i mean you know you're right you know you know the purpose of qualifying work experience is to give people that experience to what it is like you know what's likely to be involved as a as a solicitor um from a firm's perspective it's giving it's also giving them experience of what it's like to work in their organization isn't it to some extent as well but but ultimately you know that qualifying work experience you know will help people get exposure to those skills competencies not you know that will be assessed in sqe too yeah um so just some more questions on the practicalities of um confirming um qwe sorry can a firm advertise a role saying look this isn't qualifying work experience in terms of kind of advertising placements i think firms will need to think quite carefully about this i think our view is that placement should only be advertised as non-qwe if a firm is 100 sure that there is no exposure to competences in the statement of solicitor competence you know like we've talked about before you know most roles will have at least some exposure so they'd have to think very much about whether or not you know there is no exposure at all but i suppose you know thinking about it perhaps from a firm's perspective you know there are advantages in offering um placements as qualifying work experience you know it it you know it's it's beneficial for an individual but it's also kind of beneficial for the firm to um to try and attract and be exposed to a wider range or caliber of candidates you know it's really it's it's a selling point for the firm but it's also giving the individual an opportunity to be exposed to the competencies gives them the best chance of passing the sqe and obviously then you know the benefits of of an individual being a solicitor working for that organization we've just had another question come in richard and it very much picks up on the point you were just making but i suppose it's worth hammering at home seeing as there's a question come in about it this person's asked when a paralegal or similar is recruited can we at the outset refuse to allow the period of time to count as qwe and i think i think it's a very it's very similar to the grants you've just covered is that you'd have to be very 100 sure that that paralegal role wasn't going to have any exposure to the competencies to sort of make that make that call um for somebody and to say you were going to refuse someone to allow to claim that as qwe i think that's that's that's absolutely right you know if an individual in in he may well be in that's that that particular situation can can say well the work that i've i've done or will be doing um it has enabled me to meet these competencies then you know almost the default position of of um that the firm needs to be without it that is qualifying working so they will need to just to sign it off so let's just remind ourselves again who exactly can sign off qualifying work experience and you know what what are they confirming okay so in terms of the who so it needs to be confirmed by a solicitor or compliance officer for legal practice you know a culp who we regulate um this means that an individual who has evidence that they've met our qwe conditions um could approach you or or a cop or another solicitor in your firm to confirm that their qualifying work experience i suppose in practice it's likely to be the individual um who has been involved in supervis supervising a particular person that will will be approached but but not always so um it also means that it's not just a training principle as under the current approach of signing off of work experience um and as we've mentioned in terms of practicalities i think firms should start to really begin to think about what confirming qualifying work experience means for them as an organization going forward so i think that's a little bit about the who i suppose the what for each placement or role where the following must be confirmed so you know we're asking um a solicitor or cult to confirm the time scale of the work experience so the kind of to and from dates essentially um that it provided an opportunity for that individual to develop some or all of the prescribed competencies for solicitors and again going back to that point about responsibility of the individual to say well look i've done these things these are the competencies i've met here's here's my evidence um we're asking a sister cult to confirm that there are no character suitability issues um that arose during the work experience and that raises questions about whether candidates should be admitted as a solicitor and if there are we want to know what they are but i think it's really important for for those involved in confirming qualifying work experience that they understand that they're not making any judgment about the competence of an individual to to be a solicitor because as we've said that's the sqe that's the check but also that they're making no kind of judgment i suppose around the suitability of an individual to be a solicitor you know we have our character and suitability requirements and that enables us to pick up any issues and address any issues around character and suitability that might well be raised through this confirmation of qualifying work experience so we've already covered the off the question of sort of can can you refuse to say a placement is qualifying work experience but if somebody uh does that work can a solicitor or cult then refuse to confirm that qualifying work experience at the end of that process i mean we recognize that this is this is new for solicitors and it is you know a kind of a shifting approach as as we've discussed um so i think really as i've said before the default position is that if a period of work experience meets our conditions and our criteria then it is likely and highly likely that it will be qualifying work experience and you know the default position of someone signing it off is that actually it should be signed off so kind of in reality you know i don't think we expect there will be very few instances where qualifying work experience might well be refused i mean we touched on a couple at the very top of the webinar but i think it's it's really important for individuals who are signing off uh or confirming sorry qualifying work experience um to think about their wider regulatory obligations so you know in confirming they will need to comply with with our principles and our code of conduct that they are acting honestly they're acting fairly at all times and they're not abusing their position by taking unfair advantage of an individual so i suppose in the world of qualifying work experience you know if someone is deliberately refusing to sign off qualifying work experience that you know meets our conditions then we're likely to want to have a look at that and want to look at whether there is a breach of our regulations okay we've had um quite a few questions so i think we can just file the answer off to this quickly around can qualifying work experience be claimed retrospectively which i think the answer is yes you can claim it before um sort of the sqe comes in for for periods that you've worked before 2020 and also there's no time limit as they're richard on when you can claim back to um but just to build on those questions that have come in the fact that qualifying work experience can be came retrospectively what what does that mean for firms what what how should they be sort of approaching that i mean in practice it means that a a previous employee or previous trainee might well approach them and say you know the work that i did for you for whether it's two years one year six months whatever you know i want to claim that it's qualifying work experience here's my evidence um here's what i did here's how it developed the competencies i i want you to to confirm this now so you know what what if uh what a firm or an individual within a film is really doing it is is confirming those details that i i've mentioned and very much it's for a firm to think about how how they do this but i think and we know you know most firms will have employee records etc so you know they firms might want to think about you know those records and keeping them in a way that enables them to deal with requests for qualifying work experience if a request is made to confirm it um i think the put there is a point here that ben that you know it may there may be some situations and some circumstances where actually for for kind of legitimate reasons an individual might approach a firm seeking retrospective qualifying work experience but and a firm may not be able to confirm it now if a firm can't you know has legitimate reasons and they've taken appropriate steps to try and sign off but can't for example they have absolutely no record of that individual or there is no one around who can say well actually yes that that's that's the sort of work that this individual did then you know that they can't they can't sign they can't sign it off no that's great and actually you've we had a question from amy exactly on that point about uh retrospective sign-off and also um jade as well questions around sort of how how do you prepare for um you know systems in terms of people approach approaching you we'll go on to talk about um sort of yeah the process in a bit because chloe's also asked the question about that actually so when when is registration for qualifying work experience and when can candidates start claiming qwe so on the first point do you need to register to um sign off somebody for qualifying work experience um firms or organizations don't need to register to provide qualifying work experience so you know any you know as you've said any solicitor or cult can confirm qualifying work experience and we know about them because we have them in our in our systems because we obviously regulate them so in terms of an individual submitting information to claim qualifying work experience we're going to open up the process for that in april april this year and we'll be providing more information on the kind of practicalities of how an individual does this shortly and and some but somebody's asked and they will be finding the details of that they've asked about will i need to do i need to submit all my evidence from the um from the the template we've published do you just want to tell people a little bit about the template and what the purpose of that but that's not a regulatory requirement as such is it no no it's not a regulator requirement that anyone who wants to claim qualifying work experience needs needs to complete it's also not a regulatory requirement that firms need to have their systems aligned to that template what that template is really designed to do is to give people i suppose a steer on the type of details that they might want to think about capturing so they are in a really good position to be able to do two things firstly to get that qualifying work experience confirmed by a solicitor or cult but secondly to be in a position where you know they've got the details easily and readily available at hand in order for them to complete our processes once they open in april now and i say we had a question from ellen about that but i think watch this space for news of tips on sort of a how you go about that process but i think the headline is it's going to be quite quite straight straightforward so um yes but we'll provide more details of that so quick fire a couple of questions one we've had asked is is it an individual signing off qwe or is it an organization it's the individual and a follow-up to that richard does the solicitor have to be um it's just come in currently practicing to be able to sign off qualifying work experience um they they just need to to be on the to be on the role in terms of being eligible to sign off so they don't you know they don't need to have a practicing certificate they just need to be on the roll i i just saw quickly that um our photo flashed up on the broadcast by the looks of it which was even more horrifying than seeing myself on camera so apologies to anyone who was um had to see my my photo but let's go on to our final um theme which is around sort of quality and practical tips and this is going back to that issue which we've already covered a bit the qualifying work experience isn't about your signing off whether someone's going to be the best solicitor in the world or even whether you think there'd be a half decent one but i suppose more broadly that's it's not the case that the sra is not interested in quality of qualifying work experience i mean i think you know it it is it's a really important point and i think you know we as we've said as i said earlier you know firms already have an obligation on them in terms of our code of conduct for firms to to make sure that anyone they employ is is essentially competence um but also that they are effectively supervised so in a way quality to some degree is managed through that existing i suppose regular existing kind of regulatory framework you know we would expect there to be you know effective supervision we didn't expect you know people to to have uh to to be comp competent and firms will put in place processes to do that um but that being said you know this is new it's different you know it's not it's not the training contract and we want to understand how it's working we want to understand whether or not there's more we can do as a regulator to support firms and to support individuals um in in helping kind of understand qualifying work experience and making sure that it gets its kind it gets embedded in the way that you know delivers the benefits that we've talked about today so you know i think we're going to put in place a number of i suppose kind of approaches just so we can get a you know kind of a sense and a temperature check of what's happening so you know as with anything any new policy that's introduced will carry out an evaluation of qualifying work experience so that'll be a standalone evaluation as well as being part of the the overarching sqe evaluation uh we'll we'll put in place um a helpline for individuals to contact us if they've got any particular issues with their with their placement and from i suppose from a firm's perspective we're going to put in place a community of interest for firms to share their experiences their their problems their issues and to try and highlight and kind of circulate best practice of qualifying work experience and all of those things um the evaluation will be will probably be a year after the sqe is coming into effect but the helpline and the community of interest will all be in place you know before sort of september september this year and as you mentioned there's lots and lots of material on our website some really kind of helpful uh helpful materials so you know anyone interested in in knowing more about qualifying work experience you know i encourage them to take a look at those resources um so let's we've just got a few minutes we can do some um quick fire um questions question coming do you have to have completed qualifying work experience before being able to sqe 2. i think the short answer that is no you can do qualifying work experience at any time but typically it would make sense to have done um a significant amount if not all of your qualifying work experience before sqe2 because the types of skills that will be being tested and other types of skills you'd expect to have gained through qualifying work experience um richard you just want to share um sort of what do you have any practical tips for firms on how they can meet our expectations around good quality qualifying work experience which in most cases or nearly all cases is going to be both in the interest of the the the firm or organization employing the individual and the individual themselves yeah absolutely just before i get on to those tips i think it's just probably just worth pointing out you know we do expect firms to you know to to um to put in place kind of good systems and processes to ensure that there is you know good quality qualifying work experience you know that's covered as i've mentioned by the regulatory obligation but we also issued some guidance before before christmas that that made that point and um identified a number of ways in which the firms could do that so i'm going to pull out a few of those but i do think you know firms should really go and have a look at look at that guidance because if they do the sorts of things that that we we say um in terms of that guidance you know they're going to be in a really strong position of offering good quality qualified work experience that delivers those those benefits you've mentioned but i suppose in terms of practical steps i think firms will need to to think about how they you know how they're going to make sure that individuals uh get exposure to diverse and varied work that enables them to to kind of exposure to to somewhere all of the competencies you know that's not just beneficial from an sqe perspective it's also beneficial from a firm perspective because you're giving them an opportunity to to be exposed to how your business runs how your business works um i think it's really important that firms should think about having discussions from the outset and an ongoing basis with individuals about expectations around the placement you know what what what can an individual expect what is the firm you know in terms of supervision you know what what facilities are there for kind of providing feedback how you know also checking that work and you know is is okay how you know what it what's the process around ensuring that an individual has the opportunity to to reflect on their work for example again that's that's you know there is a wider regulatory obligation on that i think an important point as well is is thinking about how how a firm can expose um individuals experienced role models you know and seeing how they behave ethically in ance with the code of conduct and then i suppose finally i think it's really around the sign-off process and thinking about what a firm you know what is this firm's approach to being able to support individuals in terms of perhaps collating the evidence um that they need in order to to confirm their qualifying work experience you know how can it be drawn down from hr systems those types of questions but also being clear with individuals who's going to confirm that their qualifying work experience so thank you uh thank you richard and on that point we've had one question come in um from lisa i think this is around does it have to be one sort of solicitor or she said supervisor who's signing off qualifying work experience or can it be different people signing off on different parts of somebody's qualifying work experience um you know that's very much for a firm to determine um but but there's nothing to say nothing to stop you know there being one solicitor who signs off you know everybody's confirms everyone's qualifying quirk experience or if if within the same organization an individual has um spent six months in different departments that you know someone within that department signs it off so i think there's a there's lots of different ways in which firms can can really think about think about that based on what really works for them uh and obviously if you're doing qual somebody might be doing qualifying work experience in a variety of organizations and most likely in that scenario you'd be having several different solicitors sign off i can't remember this is me having um a brain freeze moment i can't remember whether he answered this but someone did ask does someone have to be currently practicing to sign off qualifying work experience and you don't have to be practicing that's right is it richard it's anyone on the roll that's correct yeah um so we've had a question from clive and juliana but also there's a question from tom coming on a similar theme what should paralegals have done the lpc do in light of these changes can they gain qualifying work experience um absolutely you know the experience that someone's obtained as as a paralegal you know is is likely to to to be you know you know um eligible for qualifying work it's experience so um you know the someone who's you know if they've done the lpc as well they can get two years qualifying work exceeds and then take the sqe in order to to qualify so you know that's uh you know that's one of the advantages of qualifying work experience you know it really does open up um the routes to to to admission for those who may well have struggled perhaps to get a training contract in the past and just to clarify and i think this is what tom was asking about if you've done the lpc um and you've gained the qualifying work experience you would then have to take sqe 2 in order to qualify as i say that would really be a scenario for perhaps somebody who was struggling to get a training contract but had built up um built up perhaps qualified work experience well perhaps we'll go to the final question because i know we're well over time but thank you everyone for putting those questions in and agnes has asked what should firms outside the uk keep in mind of if they're offering the sqe route what should they be thinking about for their trainees um i suppose there's a there's a couple of points the first one was in relation to qwe um you know as i said at the beginning you know as long as it's it's providing legal services it can be obtained here or abroad so there are opportunities for firms with with with overseas offices for for for for for their staff or for their employees to to to gain exposure in those contexts um and that's absolutely fine so long as it's signed off by a a solicitor that we regulate um so that that's that's one point i think the other point is probably in terms of the assessments themselves ben um you know the sqe1 will be offered in a range of centers in the uk and abroad so you know there's lots of kind of overseas provision there but i think it's worth being you know firms being aware that any candidate who wants to take the sqe too which is you know as you've said focuses on the practical skills and knowledge you know they would need to travel to one of our centers or you know one of the centers that are running the assessment in england and wales yeah and i think there's i think there's three three three three three centers aren't there and i suppose a final uh thing just to bear in mind for those um sort of trained over broad if you're a qualified um lawyer from overseas have a look at our um webinar on the uh what the situation is for qualified lawyers because it's a bit a bit different there in terms of what what you need in terms of qualifying work experience or what you don't need and so have a look at that if specifically you have qualified as a lawyer overseas um i think that brings us um to the end of our questions well done richard on answering so many of those and thank you to everyone who submitted questions hopefully we got through um a lot of them i know we haven't been able to get through all of them we will be running future webinars we're going to be doing a candidate focus one which is likely going to run on the 15th of march so put that in your diary there is a link below which um you can click on to offer feedback it will only take two minutes but it's really helpful for us to understand whether um this webinar worked well for you whether it covered the types of things you'd like to cover or whether it's whether you'd find something else more useful to cover and we can then consider improving our webinars or covering different subjects in the future um but hopefully you have found it useful a big thanks and shout out to matt as ever for the brilliant production job he's done behind the scenes um but otherwise just wanted to thank everybody for joining us and i hope you enjoy the rest of the afternoon you