At the law fairs in October 2024, the question about whether non-law grads need to do a Postgraduate Diploma in Law (PGDL) conversion course kept coming up. And we know the short answer is no: the Solicitors Regulation Association (SRA) has done away with the conversion course requirement for the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) route to qualification.
And yet, some law firms are still looking to recruit non-law-degree SQE trainees who have completed a PGDL. But in our experience, that is expensive, time-consuming and unnecessary – and here’s why.
A PGDL is an academic study of the seven core subjects of a law degree, but a properly taught SQE1 course also covers these in detail so to do both would be a duplication.
While a law degree or PGDL is concerned with the academic study of the law, the SQE’s Functional Legal Knowledge (FLK) not only tests the same material, it takes it a step further: by testing the application of these legal principles to situations that candidates may come across in practice.
A university education has many benefits in terms of critical thinking, analysis and skills development. However, a law degree – even at post-graduate level – is unlikely to deliver long-term recall of core legal principles. The application of FLK as assessed in the SQE is rarely studied (if at all), even on a typical law degree.
This reinforces the BARBRI approach to SQE preparation. We provide a comprehensive review of core legal topics in SQE1 prep, whether our students studied law or not at university. Our philosophy is that all students, irrespective of their undergraduate degree subject, need a thorough grounding in the principles of law and practice.
Working with key stakeholders, we have identified that non-law grads will have less familiarity with the concepts, terminology and key cases of our legal system when they start doing SQE1. That’s why we created our Foundations in Law course: to help students who didn’t study law to, among other things, build a strong foundational understanding of the court system, the differences between civil/criminal law and equity and the system of precedent, before they set out on their SQE journey.
If you have any questions around the SQE and PGDL, or our Foundations in Law and SQE Prep courses, get in touch here.
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