At the beginning of this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) gave the Ukrainian advocates an agreed exemption from passing the second part of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). Earlier, the Ukrainian Bar Association appealed to the SRA to provide Ukrainian advocates with such an opportunity.

So how to qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales? What is the SQE? How can a Ukrainian lawyer apply for the SQE2 exemption? These and other questions were answered by the participants of the joint webinar of the UBA and BARBRI held on April 14. Speakers at the event were Claire Flores, Head of International Business Development of BARBRI Global, and Siobhan Walker, Business Development Manager of BARBRI Global. Welcoming remarks were made by Aminat Suleymanova, member of the UBA Board, managing partner at AGA Partners.

Claire Flores detailed how to apply for the SQE2 exemption (PRESENTATION). She explained that lawyers from certain jurisdictions can be exempted from SQE2 on the basis of either an individual exemption (a lawyer must prove at least two years of legal work experience) or an agreed exemption (proof of legal practice is not required).

Ms. Flores reminded that Ukraine has recently been included among the jurisdictions covered by the agreed exemption. However, regardless of which SQE2 exemption is applied to a lawyer, he/she must also demonstrate that his/her English language proficiency meets the SRA requirements. Sufficient confirmation will be the fact of studying at a university where teaching was conducted in English, otherwise the candidate will have to pass a language test.

Claire Flores also explained how the SQE1 exam is set up and what subjects it consists of. In addition, she familiarized the workshop audience with the BARBRI SQE1 preparation courses and the BARBRI humanitarian scholarship for partial payment of the course, which can be used by Ukrainian lawyers with refugee status abroad. Ms. Flores also shared information about the career opportunities that BARBRI provides to its students and answered questions from the audience.

You can watch the event video below.

Useful links:

Information about the BARBRI humanitarian scholarship — https://www.barbri.com/sqe/sqe-humanitarian-scholarship/.

If you are interested in a virtual meeting with Dhairya Gulati, Sales Executive at BARBRI Global, you can schedule it via this link https://meetings.hubspot.com/Dhairya-gulati.