The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) had planned to postpone the exam until the autumn. However, it has since issued an update this week stating: ‘We are relaxing our current assessment requirements for all parts of the LPC.’
For skills assessments and elective subjects, LPC providers can make alternative assessment arrangements, it said. For the core LPC subjects, it will maintain its requirements for supervised assessment but ‘will consider applications for online or remote proctoring of supervised assessments’.
LPC providers must apply for approval before making any changes to assessments, and the SRA ‘will decide quickly’ on applications.
It also confirmed that trainees are permitted to begin their training contract before completing their LPC, therefore training providers may need to plan for trainees to complete the course later on. Where trainees are working from home, they must be ‘appropriately supervised’―the SRA said it will accept firms ‘putting sensible arrangements in place for supervisors to review trainees’ work remotely’, and there is no maximum amount of time a trainees can be supervised remotely.
The announcement was welcomed by the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD), which had raised concerns about the SRA’s earlier decision to delay the LPC exams. In a letter to the Chief Executive Officer Paul Philip earlier this week, JLD chair Charlotte Parkinson warned this would leave students, solicitor apprentices and trainee solicitors ‘in limbo’.
Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) students made similar requests to their regulator last week. However, the Bar Standards Board is so far sticking to its decision to cancel the April exams for civil litigation, criminal litigation and professional ethics. The next opportunity to sit the exams will be August 2020.
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