How competent are you?

New entrants to the law might soon be measured in a different way to see if they are up to the job of being a solicitor. 

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has just closed a consultation on a proposed “competence statement” which is intended to set out what is expected of solicitors when newly qualified and subsequently. The SRA has also developed a “statement of legal knowledge” that covers the areas of law you should know, and a “threshold statement” to show what level you should be performing at when you qualify as a solicitor.

YLAL has submitted a reply which you can download from the bottom of the page. We raised concern about the timing of these measures, in the absence of any assessment framework to measure competence against (this will be consulted on later in the year). We also expressed our view that areas of practice that are important to legal aid lawyers should have more prominence in the proposed documents.

If you have any thoughts about this consultation and our reply, or if you want to get involved in future work relating to access to the profession, please get in touch: ylalinfo@gmail.com.