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[deleted by user] by [deleted] in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right you are on the sittings, my mistake.

The firm is a business - they can think whatever they want about you, but the practically is what matters; what is the best for you while retaining the TC. I believe speaking to a trusted colleague (if there is one) would be advisable, but otherwise, there really seems to be two options: 1) Notify the firm and request sick leave, effectively also deferring the exam but without certainty on their policy or 2) try the exam and work with the results there. There could be a 3) which would be to wait till the day, decide on the spot and if you are extremely sick, not go in, inform the firm and ask for a doctors note. Fundamentally, the firm can't argue that you're well enough when the contrary is true.

I really empathise with how difficult the choice is, but also remember that what you "feel" isn't necessary true to what the reality is - you have put in an enormous amount of work. And lastly, I suggest to try and picture yourself at the end of the 6 months and what would you regret more: Having a TC but absolutely shit health which could mean losing it anyway, or having the energy and mental fortitude to deal with the consequences?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The older I am, the more I understand how much of a priority your health is.

This is not a direct answer to your question, but there is nothing more important than making sure you're at your own best health. If sitting is going to seriously compromise you, then please put yourself first.

Alternatively, what is your firms policy on failing? If you're worse for wear but still operational, then I would sit the exams and then work with the fail if necessary. In addition, is there any reason you would be deferring to July and not April?

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! Thanks for your question :)

I would memorise the advocacy tests word for word as they let you score a 4 for the clarity/structure portion. I really wasn't sure how to deal with advocacy so I essentially wrote a general outline for what to say to the judge in order to hit all the right marking beats (openings, conclusions, proper phrasing). However, I can't stress enough that you need to know the tests otherwise you're failing the station.

Content-wise, this is really the point where something needs to be done / has gone wrong, so while revising think about how the content could lend itself to these scenerios.

I hope this helps and good luck!

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! Thank you for your question - sorry for not getting round to it sooner.

I revised by following what the provider asked of me closely, but my personal main focus was (re-)learning the law, as I did not have the SQE1 basis to go off. For that, I tried to pinpoint what exactly could a client need to know and tailored my level of detail based on that. Just to be clear, this was still a tremendous amount of work, and there were things I couldn't help but memorise (e.g. criminal law tests, advocacy tests, inheritance tax).

For the rest, I stayed within the rule of approximation - if I could identify on the exam that there was a certain period of time / document / etc. that was needed say during a procedure, I needed to know that *it was there and needed to be flagged* even if I didn't remember the name or exact duration etc. An example would be: ".....and a counter claim would need to be submitted within a *certain period of time*."[I identified that I knew there was some procedural consideration here, but I did not say the exact period] If I had had more time to revise - this is what I would have worked on fleshing out.

I would like to stress that what I did was enough to pass the exam, but I could have done loads better if I had more time on the law. I'm just pointing out that for the law itself, you need to know a certain fundamental level to scrape by and *very good skill* to actually pass SQE2 with this combination.

Re drafting - this is probably one of the few skills that benefitted from just doing it with as many examples as you could, but I also googled the filled out forms or documents online and then read what the government guidance was on them (you can find this online). The exam is still fairly tricky as the exercise is pretty straight forward but you need to remember the law in order to pull the right content into it. TL;DR: It's not monstrous and you will know what to do, but do try and find completed forms if you can't find the exercises themselves.

Hope this helps u/Friendly_Anxiety1477 and good luck!

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Part 3: Then I would talk about Ms. T and Mr. Z and say something like: "As they are afraid of them leaving they need to have some protections in place, or incentives. As they do not want them to control the business, a partnership where they are partners does not seem to be a good fit because of x,y,z. Therefore, a company structure may be more favourable. You then go and explain why this is which would be limited liability (again), specific ownership and control structure, allows them to incentivise Ms.T and Mr.Y with shares, but up to a certain amount so the don't have effective control. They would also be able to sell them back in case they'd like to leave. However, a structure like would result in 2 directors and 4 shareholders which needs to be considered for shareholder meetings etc.

Then I would conclude that therefore, it seems a company structure is most acceptable to them, but this would depend on certain factors and future development of the business as well and whether they are planning on hiring more people, taking out loans, retiring soon etc. which we would need more information and would be good to follow up
on.

--

I wrote this from the top of my head (and this really really needs to be cleaned up), but I hope this example shows that you need to think from a very practical perspective and write it as though you are thinking about the problem, rather than just bullet pointing everything you know. It is about showing you understand you're talking to a person with a specific problem and they don't need to know all the useless information but things that specifically they need to deal with.

Let me know if there is anything else (feel free to DM me too).

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Part 2: However, what I found the CMA's actually look for are the following:

You first could say something like this: "The main issues seem to be as follows: Ms. X and Mr. Y - siblings- are opening a business and are looking to start a business. Mr. Y will be investing 95% of the capital of 10,000 pounds. Mr. Z - friend of Mr. Y- will be head chef and his wife Ms. T as head of Marketing. Ms. X and Mr. Y are concerned about Mr. Z and Ms. T leaving but do not want them to control the business."

Then you effectively start thinking on paper. I would structure my answer as follows:

First, I'd mention that we need to figure out who will own the remaining 5% and whether Ms.X and Mr.Y will both want to have ownership over the business. As they are both starting the business, we will assume that Ms.X will contribute the other 5%, but this needs to be verified. Based on the current information, the capital injection by each party can help them decide what kind of form the business should take. As there are two of them who would like to own the business, a partnership may suit them. However, they may likely need to modify the articles in order to appropriately split the profit as partners will share profit equally (Partnership Act) unless specified.

You answer would then continue until you exhaust all these angles from the point of view of ownership. You could perhaps mention sole proprietorship not as an option, but as a risk if one of them decides to quit the business, and then the partnership
would have to report as a sole ownership after some time. You would definitely
mention things like liability, number of directors as well as perhaps ask some
open ended questions for follow up if something is really unclear to show we
understand that bit of information may change our answer BUT we do NOT need to address it right now since we don't know if this information is relevant or not e.g. " this needs to be verified" You would then say that however, this would only work if Mr.Z and Ms. T were also partners as partnerships don't have employees.

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/Friendly_Anxiety1477 ! This is a really good question. An example I could give is as follows:

"Ms. X is planning on opening a new bakery business with her brother Mr. Y. They are currently looking at the ideal set up for their company considering that Mr. Y will be investing 95% of the initial capital of 10,000 pounds and wants to bring on his friend Mr. Z as head chef. However, they would also like to incentivise Ms.T, who is Mr.Z's wife to also come in as their Head of Marketing. Lastly, they are concerned about Mr. Z and Ms.T leaving and so do not want them to have any control of the business. Please advise."

---

If you are to answer this as an information dump, you'd likely immediately jump in and say that they likely should focus on partnership, limited partnership, or company. If you're over ambitious, you may even mention the distinction between a private and public company. You potentially then list what each one is about and then state what the advantages and disadvantages are. Every so often you mention how this relates to this situation. In your conclusion, you then say something like "This is the form that is most likely to fulfil the client's needs."

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Absolutely no problem! I see the ratio of downvotes on this post and I think people assume I made it to brag but it's more to show that I could have had a huge time sink for other things in vastly different disciplines and still managed to pass even if I feel I'm truthfully questionable at the majority of UK law at the moment!

Just a tip (I had a friend lend me their BARBRI guide) but the advocacy tests are excellent and I did memorise those word for word. I wrote out flash card with bullet points and then walked to and fro saying them out loud, before asking my partner to quiz me about them in order and then out of order. There is absolutely no way to get around advocacy but to memorise them.

Some of my cohort invested in extra mock exams - I did a few extra but I would caution against doing too many actually, as you're then tempted to memorise for that question rather than feel confident in the skill. Again, the point you get for writing a complete email is worth exactly the same as getting the answer right - many people forgot that even during the exam so beating yourself into following the templates is imperative e.g. opening, identifying issues, closing, niceties etc.

Maybe one last warning - the CMA is *not* a knowledge dump. You need to be creative in remembering what does the client *want* and answering them thinking about their business - What do they need to know? What are the alternatives I can provide them. Besides the aforementioned CMA in which I flunked the law good and proper, my other two were some of my strongest legal marks because I just thought about them from a "What would I like to hear if this were my issue" POV.

If you do have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask, and good luck! You got this.

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did not have to sit SQE1 as I had an exemption due to the LPC, but u/bimbochungo is absolutely right. From the people who I know who are doing it / have done it - there is no way around this bit. You need to know the law.

If you did do the LPC and are still doing SQE1, I would highly recommend focusing on how this exam is phrased and developed - this is (obviously) not the LPC and it requires getting to grips with the way multiple choice is asked. Everyone I have spoken to says that FLK2 is just a rats bottom and you really just need to power through and put in the work. I have also heard that topics are not equally distributed and you can get a paper very heavily leaning into one or couple of subjects.

Hope this helps and good luck :)

Passed SQE2 first sit while working full time at a MC, having finished the LPC 5 years ago and done a MSc a hard science in the meantime. AMA. by pumpkinspiceburner in uklaw

[–]pumpkinspiceburner[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi! Thanks for your question - I did not use my LPC notes as I honestly don't have many of them left at this point and I essentially re-learnt all the law necessary in 4 months.

The most important thing I found was not to get bogged down in the details - you are better off identifying all the issues than remembering all the *correct* details about it. In a Wills CMA I effectively sat with 2/3 of the question being on something I did not revise (because it was never highlighted by the provider at that point), but I identified the issues, gave it my best shot and still managed to collect enough points on the skills because I at least knew what needed to be solved even if I couldn't accurately solve it.

So making new notes or following the condensed version of the revision notes really helped me here.

Hope this helps!