College of Legal Practice will challenge established players for market share
A top Australian law school is gearing up to launch its own range of prep courses for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), Legal Cheek can reveal.
The College of Legal Practice (CoLP) confirmed today it will offer an online super-exam prep programme for both SQE1 and SQE2 from next summer. The news come just days after the super-watchdog, the Legal Services Board, gave final sign-off on the new two-part centralised assessment.
CoLP launched towards the end of 2019 as an offshoot of big Antipodean law school The College of Law Australia and New Zealand, which is keen to tap into the UK legal education market. It’s being led by former Kaplan Law School chief Giles Proctor.
At the time of the launch, Legal Cheek revealed the venture had already attracted a number of big name backers including Richard Clark, ex-managing partner at Slaughter and May, and Isabel Parker, former chief legal innovation officer at Freshfields. Both are non-executive directors on the College’s board.
It was also reported at the time that CoLP would partner with US legal education provider BARBRI, to help deliver aspects of the new courses. But CoLP will now go it alone. Legal Cheek broke the news last month that BARBRI is to offer its SQE prep programme at a combined cost of £6,000 for both parts of the exam.
CoLP will also face competition from the big two UK law schools, with both The University of Law and BPP University Law School set to unveil their SQE courses this side of Christmas.
CoLP’s super-exam offering is currently under development. Full details, including costs, will be available in early 2021.
Giles Proctor, CEO of CoLP, said:
“It is the College’s ambition to make solicitors the best possible legal practitioners they can be whilst qualifying and ensuring access to the profession is not restricted by cost or location. As such, the College is putting together a full package of preparation courses and wrap-around legal-skills based training modules to ensure solicitors are fully prepared for professional practice.”
