SQE2 Oral Assessments Start Soon: Read This Before You Sit
- lawmaterevision
- Apr 30
- 4 min read
With SQE2 written exams done the oral exams are the next challenge to tackle. Here's what you actually need to know.
Interviewing
Stop Using Your Prep Time to Revise
You get ten minutes before the interview. Here is what most people do with it: they mentally rehearse legal knowledge. Here is why that's wrong: there are no marks in this station for your knowledge of the substantive law.
Use those ten minutes to write out the questions you intend to ask the client, leaving a decent gap between each one so you can record their answers in real time. Walk in with a structured question plan, not a revision summary.
Control the Pace: You're the Solicitor
The client isn't running this interview. You are. If they're moving faster than you can write, ask them to pause so you can make a proper note. That's not a weakness; that's exactly what a real solicitor would do, and the assessors know it.
Important: you cannot carry interview time into the attendance note. That clock stops when the interview stops. Get your notes legible during the interview itself.
The Mark Scheme Surprise
There is no credit for giving legal advice during the interview.
This genuinely catches candidates out. Your marks come from asking appropriate questions, managing expectations, reassuring the client, and outlining possible solutions. The legal analysis lives in the attendance note, not before it.
How to Structure Your Attendance Note
The attendance note is a written record of the advice you would give the client, having properly reflected on their instructions. It is not a transcript of the interview. Think of it as your legal thinking, set out clearly in three parts.
Part 1: Record the client's instructions. Open with a paragraph that introduces why the client has come to see you and briefly reference your handwritten notes from the session.
Part 2: Analyse the legal issues. The key is to break the client's problem down into its separate legal issues and give each one its own subheading. Under each subheading: identify the relevant law, apply it to the client's facts, and reach a conclusion on that issue. Keep the issues separate. Do not blend them together into a running narrative.
Part 3: Set out the next steps. Writing "arrange a follow-up" is not enough. Write what that follow-up will cover and why it is needed at this stage, tied directly to this client's situation. Generic next steps are a quiet way of losing marks you should have had.
If when writing your attendance note you realise oyu forgot to ask a question whihc you should highlight this in your attendance note. Good solicitors will forget to ask questions in an interview - especially if they only have 10 minutes to prepare - and recognises you've missed a bit shows good legal knowledge.
Advocacy
Know What You're There to Do
You are not there to tell the judge what happened. You are there to apply the relevant substantive and procedural law to the evidence and persuade the judge that it is appropriate for them to exercise their power.
Learn the Tests
If you do nothing else in your final prep, learn the advocacy tests. Not recognise them; know them.
The candidates who look composed in advocacy aren't necessarily the most legally knowledgeable. They're the ones who had a clear framework before they opened their mouth. Knowing the test for your specific application gives you that: what you're arguing, in what order, and what evidence you need to back it up. That translates directly into composure on the day.
Number the Documents, Don't Transcribe Them
Your resources are in front of you: witness statements, particulars of claim, whatever applies. Don't copy them out.
Number the key sections of each document and write the corresponding number in your plan at the point where you'll need to refer to it. When you're mid-submission, direct the judge: "If Your Honour would turn to paragraph 4 of the witness statement..." and use that moment to get there yourself. It gives you more time when preparing, looks professional, and keeps the submission flowing.
Structure and Close Cleanly
Your submission doesn't need to be a polished speech. It needs to be a clear, logical note of your legal argument:
State the application
Remind the judge of the test
Make your submissions, tying the evidence to the test
Close with: "Unless I can assist you further, that concludes my submissions"
And always address the judge correctly throughout.
There's Still Time to Practise Properly
Knowing what to do is step one. Doing it under exam conditions is where the confidence actually comes from, and with the assessments starting soon, every practice rep counts.
The MyLawMate Oral Skills Pack covers both stations: realistic scenarios and model answers written by someone who has sat SQE2. The answers reflect what a real candidate can produce under time pressure, not an idealised response no one could reproduce in an exam room. If you're sitting soon, this is where to focus your remaining prep.
Good luck to everyone sitting in the coming weeks.
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