The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has launched a fund to help aspiring lawyers from disadvantaged backgrounds cover the costs of sitting the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).

Organisations with a track record of helping aspiring solicitors can bid to receive financial support from the SQE Access and Reinvestment Fund, which is being financed through around £360,000 in fines levied on Kaplan – the official SQE provider – for contractual penalties accumulated since the SQE was launched.

Successful applicants will have their SQE entry fees covered once selected for support, which is expected to benefit around 190 candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds sitting SQE1. The cost of the examinations will rise this year to £1,934 for the first phase of SQE exams, while the SQE2 exam will now cost £2,974 from 2025/6 onwards.

Paul Philip, chief executive of the SRA, who announced his forthcoming retirement recently, said the fund would support organisations working to improve access to the profession.

He added: “We do not want to see talented individuals being held back by financial constraints and other personal challenges. A diverse profession that can attract the best people and represent the society it serves, is a stronger profession. We look forward to receiving applications and to supporting established schemes.”

Organisations that apply need to demonstrate how their schemes support self-funding aspiring lawyers who face significant barriers to qualifying as solicitors, such as having a disability, coming from a cared-for background or experiencing family estrangement.

Law Society of England and Wales president Richard Atkinson welcomed the use of the funds to support disadvantaged students but noted the application timeline was short.

“We hope that it will be extended to give organisations ample time to consider applying,” he said.

He added that the society would review its provisions, including its own Diversity Access Scheme (DAS), adding: “We will review the scheme criteria and details of the funding over the coming weeks.”  

The DAS aims to promote social mobility and increase diversity within the legal profession by supporting individuals who face social, educational, financial or personal challenges in qualifying as solicitors.  

Together with DAS sponsors, the Law Society has invested £3.5m in the scheme as of February 2025, supporting more than 300 aspiring solicitors to complete their legal education and providing 4,000 hours of mentoring.

Since 2020, 26 DAS awardees have started or completed training contracts and 11 have secured qualifying work experience.

Rebekah Sutcliffe, the current chair of the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD), welcomed the new fund.

“We believe it introduces much-needed financial assistance for talented, diverse individuals that may otherwise have been prevented from accessing the legal profession due to financial limitations and personal circumstances,” she said.

She added that the SRA should develop the fund further “so more candidates can take advantage of this opportunity, especially given increases to SQE examination fees. The JLD would also encourage further initiatives from the SRA to continue to help improve access to the legal profession”.

There was also support from the City of London Law Society, with Colin Shaw, the CLLS’s training committee chair-designate, saying the initiative “comes not a day too soon”.

He said: “We know that the profession could, should and one day will be more broadly representative of the communities in which it operates and anything in pursuit of that goal is to be welcomed.

“Too many talented and ambitious aspiring solicitors have been held back by financial barriers – anyone appropriately talented and tenacious should be able to access the profession regardless of who, what and where they are.”  

Recognising the substantial revenues generated by the SQE assessment process, the CLLS also recommended that the SRA increase available funding and expand eligibility criteria, including lack of access to financial resources, to enable more candidates to become solicitors.

The CLLS established a Social Welfare Solicitors’ Qualification Fund four years ago, attracting almost £1.3m in donations, enough to fund more than 120 legal aid practitioners through to qualification. More than 30 candidates have passed SQE2, and 20 new candidates recently had funding approved through the programme.

Social Mobility Initiative of the Year is a category in the Women and Diversity in Law Awards hosted by The Global Legal Post, which took place in London yesterday (18 March). The winner of this category was Fragomen.