Our work on diversity

Action: Sector engagement and sharing good practice

What the research said

Researchers found the causes of differential outcomes by ethnicity in legal professional assessments were complex and interrelated. They cannot be remedied by one set of actions or one set of stakeholders alone, and collaboration is key.

The researchers suggested the SRA should consider:

• playing a leading role as a change agent in progressing diversity across the profession such as showcasing good practice and convening stakeholders
• monitoring diversity data and initiatives across the profession and education
• sharing relevant diversity research with stakeholders to support evidence-based practice.

What we have done

To facilitate the sharing of good practice, keep the conversation going and support evidence based practice, we committed to:

• holding an online forum
• sharing research, data and initiatives with forum members.

Since April 2025, we have held a regular online forum to share good practice and research. We have heard presentations from:

• Futures for All (formerly Speakers for Schools)
• University of Law
• Government Legal Department
• Kaplan
• Black Solicitors Network
• BPP University Law School
• InterLaw Diversity Forum.

We have also heard directly from aspiring solicitors during the meetings. We have shared links to published research and examples of good practice with the forum.

Next steps

We will continue to hold the online forum and share research and best practice.

Support for candidates preparing to take the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)

What the research said

Researchers highlighted several reasons why, generally, minority ethnic candidates might perform less well in professional legal assessments than White candidates. Key factors relate to social and economic background, school and university outcomes, lack of fitting in and support and access to legal work experience. They also suggested that it could be linked to lack of familiarity with the assessment requirements and their exposure to the same types/volumes of exam preparation.

The researchers suggested that those responsible for the provision of legal education should 'provide more resource required to help increase academic skills, such as assessment preparation'.

What we have done

We acknowledge that the SQE uses assessment formats that are likely to be new for some candidates. It is possible that the impact of this is greater for candidates who are already at a disadvantage in preparing for the assessments for a wide range of reasons. These include working whilst studying or not having support with their assessment preparation. Such candidates may have less time and less support to familiarise themselves with the assessment methodology.

We committed to promoting the availability of information to help candidates better understand what to expect from the assessments.

Kaplan has taken the following actions to provide targeted support to SQE candidates:

• Delivered workshops to SQE training providers and publishers on best practice in writing SQE questions, and the marking and calibration of practical legal skills and competencies in SQE2 assessments. These were well-received. A video of the material covered at the SQE1 workshopis published and the video of the material covered at SQE2 workshop will be published shortly.
• Published a web page dedicated to SQE1 questions, explaining more about the use of single best answer multiple choice questions.
• Published further material on the standard of performance required to pass the SQE.
• Released a new page on the SQE website which consolidates and directs candidates to existing guidance on the SQE.
• Increased the number of sample questions for SQE1 with data showing the percentage of candidates who answered each question correctly.
• Increased the number of sample questions for SQE2..
• Increased the number of written and video candidate case studies.
• Published more information to help candidates prepare in terms of what to expect on the day of an assessment.

As well as this, we are exploring what further, potentially targeted, information could be provided. To help inform our next steps, we surveyed SQE1 candidates to understand what further support they would find helpful in preparing for SQE1. We received 1262 responses to the survey.

Next steps

We have appointed Dr Paul Campbell, a specialist in race and inclusion from University of Leicester, to advise us on next steps. Building on the findings from the survey, Dr Campbell conducted focus groups with a small sample of candidates who completed the survey, to get a deeper understanding of the challenges they face in preparing for the SQE and what further support candidates would find helpful.

The SRA and Kaplan will continue to promote the availability of information and explore what further information could be provided.

Supporting collaboration between law schools and employers

What the research said

The researchers encouraged those providing legal education to learn from their own and others' actions. This was with the aim to 'enable greater collaboration with law firms for paid work experience opportunities, practical help with lawyer skills, including soft skills, networking and cultural capital'. The benefit of such support was highlighted across all stakeholders who engaged with the research, alongside the particular challenges for some ethnic minority students of accessing it.

What we have done

We know that there are already successful partnerships between law schools and employers. We committed to understanding more about the collaborative partnerships that are already established. We also sought to understand how the SRA can play a convening role in the development of further partnerships between law firms and undergraduate law schools.

We surveyed law schools and firms in 2025. We received 39 responses from law schools and 139 from firms. We found that 78% of firms and 100% of law schools who responded supported the idea of the SRA taking a convening role. This is with the view of helping law schools and firms develop partnerships and/or schemes to support underrepresented students access opportunities that might help lead to a career in law. Law schools were most interested in the SRA convening networking events and directly matching law schools and legal employers, whilst firms were most interested in us sharing examples of best practice and organising networking events.

In light of the feedback from survey respondents, we have developed a toolkit for law firms and law schools.

Next steps

The toolkit will be published this summer. It will include:

• an overview of the features of various types of partnership and initiatives
• hints and tips for setting up and managing successful partnerships
• several case studies of successful partnerships.

In addition to the toolkit, we will explore with stakeholders whether a direct matching scheme could work. We will also look at new ways to bring people together to share learning and build new partnerships.

Further analysis on SQE outcomes by candidate characteristics/background

What the research said

Researchers referred in the report to the difficulties they found with outcomes data. This is because it grouped together candidates from different ethnicities, 'sometimes arbitrarily'. This obscured differences for certain minority ethnic groups and prevented the identification of important factors specific to them.

What we have done

We committed to working with Kaplan to undertake further analysis of the data on SQE candidate performance to understand more about the influence of candidates' characteristics and experience on their SQE performance.

Kaplan has published a report examining candidate characteristics and factors influencing outcomes.

Next steps

We will continue to publish diversity data after each assessment and in the SQE annual reports. We will repeat further analysis on the influence of candidates' characteristics and experience on their SQE performance in 2027 and publish the findings.

Contextualised recruitment

What the research said

Contextual recruitment takes the wider context of the applicant's learning experience into account when assessing their prior levels of achievement. It has been widely used in higher education for some years. It has more recently been adopted by some law firms.

The researchers highlighted the value of contextualised recruitment in widening the talent pool from which firms recruit. The researchers suggested that firms should consider what, or what more, they can do to use contextual recruitment, especially for roles involving funded preparatory courses for legal professional assessments.

What we have done

We committed to exploring the feasibility of a scheme to help smaller firms undertake contextualised recruitment.

We found out more about the use of contextual recruitment tools from the law firm survey referred to above. We met with various stakeholders including the Law Society for England and Wales and for Scotland, the Bar Council, providers of contextual recruitment services in the market and a number of law firms.

Firms used contextual recruitment in different ways and usually alongside other schemes. It was used mainly to manage early careers recruitment and was most cost effective when used at scale. We were not able to identify a suitable model for a scheme to help smaller firms use contextual recruitment services in the market. The main obstacle was the resource and cost to firms of setting up and maintaining a scheme.

Next steps

We will continue to encourage the use of contextual recruitment where we can, for example through our online resources for the profession. The aim of contextual recruitment is to promote a more inclusive recruitment pool. To this point, we will develop and promote further resources, in particular for midsized and smaller firms to encourage best practice in recruitment and retention.

Thematic review of recruitment and retention

What the research said

The researchers highlighted the lack of diversity at senior levels in law firms as a potential cause of differential outcomes in legal professional assessments. The research found that only a small number of firms focused on collecting and responding to diversity data within their firm.

The researchers suggested that firms should consider what, or what more, they can do to measure recruitment and retention performance against appropriate diversity targets. They suggested this should be done at all levels to ensure greater diversity in senior leadership.

What we have done

We committed to undertaking a thematic review to understand firms' approaches to recruitment and retention. We have not been able to progress the review due to the need to prioritise higher risk areas. However, we have already published resources on recruitment and retention, including a webinar. We have also been able to identify and share examples of good practice in recruitment and retention through our regular online forum.

Next steps

Examples of good practice in early talent recruitment will be published within our toolkit for law firms and law schools this summer.

Workstream 1: Tailored support for small firms

What the research said

The research highlighted the overrepresentation of sole practices and small firms in the number of reports received and taken forward for investigation. It found the size of firm where a solicitor works has a significant impact on the relative likelihood of being reported to and investigated by us. The researchers found that this is likely to have an impact on the overrepresentation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic solicitors as they are more likely than White solicitors to work in smaller firms. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested that we consider what more can be done to disseminate guidance and support to solicitors in sole practices and small firms.

Our actions – work completed and next steps

Working in partnership with groups representing sole practices and small firms to design and deliver a series of compliance webinars.

We delivered a webinar for sole practitioners on Anti-money Laundering (AML) in May 2025 and continue to engage regularly with the Sole Practitioners Group about compliance issues. We have held compliance sessions on AML and AI for diversity groups and will continue to support external compliance sessions like this where we can.

A further webinar for sole practitioners and small firms on core compliance issues is being developed for delivery before the end of 2026.

Engaging with stakeholders to understand issues identified in our annual review of the reports we receive about competence and exploring how we can better share intelligence and data on these issues

In line with the commitments made in our annual assessment of continuing competence 2025, we will be engaging with sole practitioners and small firms. This will have a focus on what more we can do to understand and address the competence issues we see from our analysis of reports we receive each year. This engagement will be undertaken during the summer 2026 in the course of consulting on our proposals for continuing competence.

Promoting our warning notices and guidance to smaller firms.

We will use the insight gained from our engagement to identify what would help smaller firms access our warning notices and guidance by the end of the summer 2026.

Workstream 2: Further strengthen our assessment process

What the research said

An evaluation of our assessment process, through a desk-based review and interviews with staff, led the researchers to conclude that our assessment threshold test, training materials, online guidance and standard operating procedures are 'for the most part, as robust as they can be '. Our equality, diversity and inclusion training (including a module on unconscious bias) was found to represent best practice. Based on interviews with staff, the researchers suggested areas where we could further improve our approach. This included augmenting the range of guidance and support which is already in place to assist staff in handling borderline cases, and more consistently recording relevant information about assessment decisions on our systems, covering both the combination of factors considered and the rationale for the decision. In addition, although not based on findings from the research, we have identified additional steps which we think are appropriate, namely, to consider what more we can do to manage the risk of unconscious bias, and to enhance the understanding our assessment team has of practising in different areas of law.

Our actions – work completed and next steps

Improving how we record our assessment decisions, covering both the combination of factors considered at the assessment stage, and the rationale for the decision.

We met this commitment in September 2024, when we implemented a new approach to recording our decisions in the assessment team. This supports transparent, objective and evidence-based decision making. We record decisions not to investigate on a form which is shared with the complainant and the person or firm complained about. We record decisions to investigate on a template, which records all the factors considered in reaching our decision. We are rolling out quality assurance measures, including an end-to-end file review process and we are keeping this work under review.

Providing more guidance for staff on complex / borderline cases.

We have met this commitment by enhancing our existing approach to considering borderline cases. This involves holding regular surgeries to discuss borderline case and providing direction on next steps. We use these discussions to identify themes arising across the assessment process and use any learning to inform individual feedback and/or wider staff training.

Building role specific content on unconscious bias into the assessment team 's training programme.

As part of our renewed focus on diversity and inclusion training, all staff at the SRA completed our unconscious bias module in December 2025.

We are considering what further insights into the risk of unconscious bias we can incorporate into our role specific training and guidance for staff in the assessment team by the end of October 2026.

Considering additional training on practical areas of law to enhance understanding in the assessment team.

We will identify where additional training on working in different areas of law would be beneficial and work alongside our Learning and Development team to develop appropriate training by the end of October 2026.

Workstream 3: Improve how we collect and use our data, which will enable us to have better insights, identify issues and trends and respond effectively

What did the research say?

There were some challenges in undertaking the data analysis needed to support this research. The researchers suggested we take steps to address those challenges. This included considering how to address the gaps we encountered and how to store data in a way that better facilitates effective and efficient analysis. The SRA has a large programme of work underway to improve how we collect and use our data, which will enable us to have better insights, and identify issues and trends so we can respond more effectively. This will improve our understanding of the causes of the overrepresentation in the longer term. As this work develops, we will consider how we can improve our annual diversity monitoring of our enforcement process, including by improving diversity data disclosure rates.

Our actions – work completed and next steps

Reviewing our approach to the annual diversity data monitoring of individuals in our enforcement processes. 

We will consider how to get more out of our annual diversity monitoring exercise, with a view to implementing any improvements for the annual report covering our 2025/26 data.

Improving diversity data disclosure rates from regulated individuals.

We completed our upgrade of the IT supporting the diversity questionnaire on mySRA in August 2025 and launched our campaign to encourage solicitors to complete the questionnaire in November 2025. We will continue with our campaign to encourage diversity data disclosure to improve our ability to monitor our enforcement processes by diversity characteristics.

Workstream 4: Ongoing engagement with the profession and others about the overrepresentation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic solicitors and exploring the potential for working with others to develop support mechanisms

What did the research say?

The researchers acknowledged the range of factors which might be affecting the overrepresentation seen in our processes. They suggested we disseminate the findings of the research and continue to engage with the profession. The researchers also suggested further engagement with other regulators who have experienced similar issues.

Our actions – work completed and next steps

Continuing our engagement with diversity groups about these issues to identify any further support mechanisms and networks to help Black, Asian and minority ethnic solicitors navigate challenges that increase the likelihood of being the subject of a report to the SRA. 

We discussed the findings of the report with a range of stakeholders when it was published and will be engaging further over summer 2026 about what more we and others can do to provide support.

Continuing to learn from other regulators to identify any lessons from the work these regulators have undertaken in this area.

We will deepen and extend our engagement with other regulators to understand more about the work they are doing to address similar issues in their professions and identify any learning for us.

Taking steps to familiarise the profession with our enforcement processes and how we make decisions and actively share information about what to do if reported to the SRA.

We plan to gauge interest in a webinar about our approach to enforcement – liaising with diversity groups and the Sole Practitioners Group before the end of October 2026.