Apply for a UK lawyer agreed exemption

Who can apply

UK qualified lawyers who have an agreed SQE assessment exemption for their legal qualification.

Scottish solicitors

SQE2

If you are a solicitor qualified in Scotland, you are exempted from sitting the SQE2 assessment. You will need to apply for this exemption.

Please note agreed exemptions only apply to lawyers who have qualified through a jurisdiction's full legal qualification route and not cross qualified from another jurisdiction. Those who have qualified this way can still apply for exemptions, however the application will be assessed on an individual basis.

SQE1

If you have additional experience and/or other qualifications, you can also apply for an individual SQE1 exemption. Find out more

Other UK qualified lawyers

There are no agreed exemptions for any other UK qualified lawyers. Instead, you will need to apply for an individual exemption from one or both assessments based on your other qualifications and experience. Find out more

Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland solicitors

Northern Ireland or Republic of Ireland solicitors don't need to sit the SQE assessments. Find out more about how to become a solicitor of England and Wales.

Fee

There is no fee for this application. 

What to do before applying

Make sure you have added your legal qualifications and jurisdictions in mySRA within 'My profile'. You will not be to apply for the agreed exemption until you do this. You must have been already admitted as you cannot set this as a future date.

To do this you will need to create a mySRA account. If you already have one, you will need to log in.

Making your application

Once logged into mySRA, select 'Start new applications' on the homepage. The application is called 'Apply for qualified lawyer exemption from the SQE assessments'. You will then be asked a series of questions. 

If you have already started it, you will find your draft application in ‘My profile' under 'Applications and documents'.

Once you have submitted, you cannot apply for another exemption under the same application. For example, if you apply for SQE2, you cannot use the same application and fee to then apply for SQE1 at a later date.

We will let you know our decision on the agreed SQE2 exemption within 30 days. However, it is likely to take significantly less time.

Please be aware that if you apply for an individual SQE1 exemption, alongside the agreed one, it can take us 180 days to decide on the application as a whole. Decisions on the agreed SQE2 exemption will be made within the 30 days.

Log into mySRA – Apply for qualified lawyer exemption from the SQE assessments