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Discounted SQE preparation with BARBRI collaboration

  • Goldsmiths’ students will now have access to an exclusive discount for BARBRI SQE1 Prep.
  • Students at Goldsmiths engage with SQE subjects and methodologies and can select an SQE module, during their LLB degree.
  • BARBRI will now be the preferred SQE provider for Goldsmiths, where students can successfully prepare to sit the examination.
  • This collaboration will broaden access to the profession.

We are delighted to announce our collaboration with global legal education provider, BARBRI, to offer increased access to Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) preparation.

Officially introduced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2021 to diversify the profession, the SQE will replace the Legal Practice Course (LPC) as the new route to qualification for aspiring lawyers in England and Wales. With over 1,000 candidates receiving their inaugural SQE1 results in January 2022, more prospective lawyers are now hoping to pursue the SQE.

Through this timely collaboration, our aspiring lawyers at Goldsmiths will be able to prepare for the SQE1 with BARBRI at a discounted rate. Developed by internationally renowned legal and training experts, BARBRI’s SQE Prep has been carefully crafted with LawTech at its core to equip students with the in-depth knowledge and tools needed to achieve SQE success.

BARBRI’s courses help students prepare for both elements – SQE1 and SQE2 – which include multiple-choice questions and skills assessments.

Commenting on the collaboration, Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, Head of Department of Law at Goldsmiths, said: “Goldsmiths has a rich academic heritage, and we pride ourselves on our thought-provoking environment and ability to innovate, including with the outward-looking approach we take to legal education. This collaboration with BARBRI will bolster our ethos of constantly pursuing synergies between legal theory and professional practice and will support our students and alumni beyond their university experience to thrive in their future endeavours.”

“We were one of the first Law Schools in the UK to incorporate SQE content and methodologies into our degree, as early as 2019. We did that by introducing a specialist SQE module in the final year of studies and embedding SQE materials across a range of foundation and elective modules. We were looking to complete this preparation programme for the SQE by carefully selecting a preferred external SQE provider, and we are thrilled that we will be working with BARBRI. As the preferred SQE destination for our students, we are looking forward to creating opportunities for BARBRI to work with them throughout their degrees. All this will ensure our aspiring lawyers can prepare for the new SQE with tried and tested preparation methods and access mentor support from industry experts to ensure success.”

Chris Jorgenson, Senior Director of Institutional Partnerships for BARBRI, said: “We’re proud to be working with Goldsmiths to support their students and widen access to our SQE Prep courses. We’re proactively working with carefully selected university partners and firms to help increase accessibility and ensure we are creating a profession that is truly representative of society today. We appreciate that this is a key mission for the SRA but to truly make this achievable, education providers, firms and third-party organisations all have an essential role to play. We look forward to seeing Goldsmiths’ graduates successfully navigate the SQE pathway and effectuate positive change in society as solicitors.”

​​BARBRI’s innovative testing and learning technologies provide future solicitors with the best opportunity to succeed. It offers a range of full-time and part-time course options to prepare candidates for SQE success.

 

 

Climate justice, BLM, human rights: Goldsmiths Law workshops in schools continue apace

Our Department of Law is passionate about connecting with young students in schools across London and the UK, and across a range of educational settings, with a view to engaging them with, and giving them a platform to participate in, contemporary debates through a socio-legal lens.

Our Knowing Our Rights project, which seeks to raise awareness about the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK, through the Human Rights Act, has provided a great platform for this work, enabling us to connect with approximately 3,000 students, both in person and virtually, since launching the project.

At the end of March, we were delighted to virtually visit St Margaret’s School, an independent co-ed school in Bushey. Our Dr Fatima Ahdash delivered an exciting and highly relevant workshop on human rights, social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The workshop was a great hit: dynamic and highly interactive from the start. St Margaret’s impressively brilliant students were highly engaged. They actively participated in a debate on whether the Human Rights Act 1998 should be repealed and replaced with a British Bill of Rights — a highly controversial political project — and they offered some truly insightful reflections on how, and the extent to which, human rights law can tackle institutional racism in the UK.

Earlier this academic year, on December 10, international human rights day, three students from the Human Rights Law & Clinic module joined our Head of Department, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, in an in-person visit to Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC), one of the biggest sixth forms in the country, where they delivered the Knowing Our Rights workshop to students in the human rights law A level class there.

Our Knowing Our Rights workshops continue throughout May and June with planned visits to a number of secondary schools, where we will be delivering two different workshops, on climate justice and human rights, and on BLM and human rights.

We are thrilled that there has been such a positive response to this initiative, and are always looking forward to extending the reach of our work to all schools who would be interested in injecting human rights law elements into their curriculum in this way (please email us at Law@gold.ac.uk if you would like your school to take part in this programme).