Suella braverman lashes out at petition criticising solicitor exam; trainee hits back at “misquotes
A heated public spat has erupted between a trainee solicitor and former Attorney General Suella Braverman KC, over a petition challenging the fairness and transparency of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).
The row was ignited by a Change.org petition launched by a trainee using the pseudonym Hannah Cox. The petition, which had garnered over 800 signatures by Wednesday evening, alleges that the SQE is not only “disproportionately challenging” but also lacking in transparency and accountability.
Ms Cox claimed the exam had inflicted mental, physical, and financial distress on candidates. “It’s a sentiment echoed by the vast majority of other candidates,” she wrote.
Among the issues raised were the SRA’s refusal to release past exam papers or provider pass rates, and concerns over inaccurate results, unreliable appeals processes, and high costs. The petition argues these practices erode trust and disproportionately impact candidates from less traditional backgrounds or with different learning styles.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn a fiery response published in The Telegraph, Suella Braverman dismissed the petition as an attack on “excellence” and accused its backers of indulging in “snowflake sensibility.”
“The argument, if we can call it that, is that maintaining high standards will inevitably restrict ‘diversity’ in the profession,” she wrote. “This isn’t about widening opportunity. It is about lowering the bar.”
Braverman, a former Home Secretary and one-time exam-taker in England, France, and New York, added: “They were difficult. That was the point. And when I passed them, I felt a precious sense of achievement.”
She concluded: “The question, then, is not whether the SQE is too hard. The question is: when did we become so soft?”
Ms Cox swiftly responded, stating that Braverman had misrepresented the petition’s aims. “Nowhere in the petition did I claim the exam was ‘too hard’. I’m not a wet lettuce, for Christ’s sake.”
She reiterated that the issue lay not in the difficulty, but in the lack of transparency and fairness — such as the £4,760 exam fee, compared to under $750 for the New York Bar, and the £1,200 appeal cost. She also pointed to the 2023 incident in which 175 candidates were wrongly told they had failed.
“Exams should be tough,” she wrote, “but they should also be fair, consistent, and transparent.”
Her concerns were echoed by other candidates. Alex Singleton, a solicitor apprentice at Oakwood Solicitors, posted on LinkedIn that her recent SQE1 experience was draining and often bewildering.
“You’re expected to maintain concentration for over five hours per paper with no real break,” she wrote. “You’ve got 90 seconds per question and if you need a drink or loo break, that’s on your own time.”
Singleton, who has worked in personal injury for seven years, said even those questions felt unfamiliar and impractical. “It really can feel like they’re testing you to fail,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, the SRA has continued to defend the exam. Ricardo Lé, the independent reviewer of the SQE, stated earlier this year that the exam was “robust and fair,” and that he had seen “a strong commitment to continual improvement.”
Still, the clash between Braverman and Ms Cox has sparked wider debate over how legal assessments should balance rigour with accessibility.
For now, the petition continues to gather signatures, and the war of words between those defending high standards and those demanding fairness shows no sign of abating.
