Company informs Legal Cheek that no questions generated by AI are used in SQE assessments
Kaplan’s use of AI for SQE “question development” has come under scrutiny amid a row in the US about California Bar exam questions being artificially generated.
A press statement from the California Bar earlier this week about scoring adjustments to the February bar exam claimed that some multiple-choice questions were “developed with the assistance of AI” before being reviewed “by content validation panels and a subject matter expert”.
The AI questions came from independent psychometricians, not Kaplan, which produces its own question sets for the same US exam.
Mary Basick, assistant dean at the University of California, Irvine, Law School, voiced her outrage in a LinkedIn post that has since gone viral: “This is unacceptable & utterly outrageous.” Others echoed her frustration in the comments. “Just when I thought this couldn’t get more outrageous,” one wrote. “Wow. That is just insane,” another added.
In the UK, where Kaplan develops and runs the SQE on behalf of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the company told Legal Cheek that AI may be used for “question development”, highlighting a page on its website that outlines its commitment to using it in a “positive and ethical” way.
A spokesperson for Kaplan said:
“Kaplan employs a team of solicitors who write, edit and review SQE questions. All questions go through rigorous drafting, editing and review stages involving a minimum of three solicitors of England and Wales. AI may be used as one of a number of tools to assist the team with question development, in line with our published commitment statement around the use of AI.”
They added:
“To be clear, we have not used any questions generated by AI in any SQE assessments. All questions used in SQE assessments are drafted by solicitors of England and Wales. We have recently started using the AI tool within Lexis for legal research and associated tasks. And, in addition to our established quality assurance checks, we are starting to trial AI to provide an extra layer of quality assurance. This is on top of quality assurance processes that are already in place.”
Kaplan’s use of AI comes against a backdrop of past issues with the delivery and administration of the SQE — most notably in April last year, when 175 students were mistakenly told they had failed, leading to some aspiring solicitors having their training contract offers revoked.
It also follows the recent news that SQE exam fees are set to rise for a third time, with the SRA — which partners with Kaplan to deliver the SQE — citing inflation as one of the reasons.
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