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Qlts Preparation

I have passed the QLTS examinations and am now on my way to getting qualified as an English solicitor. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere before, I managed to pass both the Multiple Choice Test (MCT) and the Organised Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) on my first attempt with good scores despite only having just two weeks of preparation time for each of them. I know how challenging it can be for a practising lawyer to take on the QLTS, so hopefully this note on what worked (or didn't work) for me will help other current and prospective candidates with their preparations for the exam.

  1. Qlts Preparation
  2. Qlts Preparation Books
  3. Qlts Preparation Materials
  4. Qlts Preparation Course London
  5. Qlts Osce Preparation

As a general disclaimer, I should state here that my perspective is that of a Singaporean disputes lawyer (i.e. trained in the common law and having English as my first language), so what worked for me, may not work so well for others. I should also state that I had by no means acquired perfect scores (MCT 76%; OSCE 86%), but I think I had achieved a good result with what little time I had.

The Core Materials

Practising is an essential part of the QLTS OSCE preparation. To make your life easier, we have put together a number of publicly available online mock assessments and practice papers.

  1. The advantage of the QLTS School preparation course is its flexibility. You can study at your own pace and according to your own family, work and social calendar. As for the OSCE assessment, based on candidates’ experience, it is recommended to spend at least 10-12 weeks in preparation for the practical assessment.
  2. Preptackle provides coaching to help Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme (QLTS) candidates prepare for the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) assessments in an affordable and flexible way. Our objective is to simplify things and cut through the noise to focus on what’s important.

Books

I have been told by several past candidates that the books of choice should be the Oxford University Press (OUP) Concentrates (see: https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/c/concentrate-conc/?cc=sg&lang=en&). However, I ultimately found the OUP Concentrates to cover way too much ground. With only two weeks of preparation time, I had to find another way.

What I used instead were the Law Answered notes, specifically the GDL Answered notes (for the MCT) and the LPC Answered notes (for the OSCE). You may find them here at https://www.lawanswered.com/. They are essentially concise (but high quality) notes made by past candidates for the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and the Legal Practice Course (LPC) in England and Wales.

In my experience, only the core guides are needed; there is no need to get the accompanying case books as well. I found the notes to be good enough that I had no need to spend time making my own short notes. The only ones I found lacking were the notes on property practice and business law (specifically the partnership law section). I would therefore recommend getting the OUP Concentrates for those subjects as a supplement to the Law Answered notes.

You may be able to get copies of older versions from past candidates, but I would highly recommend purchasing the latest version from the website. You will not want to spend time researching the latest legal developments and tax rate revisions in the UK just to figure out what the older notes may have missed.

Practice Tests

For the MCT, I only used the sample questions found on the Kaplan website: https://qlts.kaplan.co.uk/the-assessment/mct. This is just enough to give you a flavour of what questions you can expect to come out, but not much else. If you wish to be fully prepared, I would suggest signing up with a course provider that can provide you with comprehensive mock papers.

For the OSCE, apart from the Kaplan sample materials (https://qlts.kaplan.co.uk/the-assessment/osce) and the QLTS Advantage materials (elaborated on below), I used the past papers and model answers from the CILEX website (Chartered Institute of Legal Executives): see https://www.cilex.org.uk/study/information_for_students/exams/past_papers. Both the Level 3 and Level 6 papers have subjects relevant for the OSCE. I did not have the time to attempt the papers, so all I did was study the model answers to about three sets of past papers. I found that to be very useful for the writing component of the OSCE exams, as the model answers are designed to be concise answers for practical questions that may be posed by a client.

Courses

Some have also asked whether signing up for a course is a good idea. I did not sign up for one for the MCT, but I did sign up for the QLTS Advantage course for the OSCE (https://www.qltsadvantage.com/).

I found the QLTS Advantage course to be excellent for the OSCE. It does not provide you with good study notes (you should stick with the Law Answered notes), but where it truly shines is its provision of practice questions with full-length video explanations from actual law professors and tutors on how to best tackle them. The revision videos were also pretty comprehensive, with special focus on the areas that are likely to be tested on. I found myself learning a lot in a short amount of time simply by watching the videos (often at 2x playback speed). It is not cheap by any means, but you really get what you pay for.

Having said that, I do believe it is possible to pass the QLTS without signing up for any such courses, but it will definitely be harder, and hopefully you will (unlike me) have more than just two weeks of preparation time.

The MCT

For the MCT, the following subjects are covered by the exams:

  • Contract Law
  • Tort Law
  • Criminal Law
  • Land Law
  • Equity & Trusts
  • Public Law
  • Business Law
  • Tax Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Solicitors’ Accounts
  • Professional Conduct
  • English Legal System

For my study schedule, I essentially spent one entire day each for subjects I was already familiar with (e.g. contract law, tort law) while I spent two days each on subjects that were more alien to me (e.g. EU law, land law). I then did the Kaplan sample questions (available from the website) and revised heavily in the last three days leading up to the test date. As I was seriously pressed for time, I had taken a gamble and skipped out on fully studying some subjects (e.g. Human Rights Law, English Legal System), but I found that doing so did not really hurt me by much in the exams. If your goal is simply to pass and you have insufficient preparation time, my advice would be to focus on the subjects that you are already familiar with and do a good job with those so that you can be assured that you will get the questions on those subjects correct, but ultimately you will need to exercise your own discretion on what level of preparation you will be comfortable with. You should also note that the MCT is only concerned with general principles of law, so there is no need to memorise case names, section numbers, etc.

For the exam itself, time management is essential. You should spare only one to two minutes for each question – if you truly don’t know the answer, choose any one option and move on to the next question. There are various exam techniques that one can apply here with regard to multiple-choice questions, e.g. process of elimination. The MCT is split up into two parts with a small break in between – bring food and water to refuel during that break. For my experience, I had finished the first part at the very last second because I had spent too much time with the difficult questions, in particular the ones that require calculations like tax law. The second part was much easier for me as I had become accustomed to the stress and I stopped fretting about getting the correct answer for each question. It is much more important to answer as many questions as you can than to assure yourself that you’ve got the right answer to the question right in front of you – remember that you only need to achieve the passing mark.

The OSCE – General

For the OSCE, the following subjects are covered:

Qlts Preparation

  • Civil Litigation
  • Criminal Litigation
  • Business Law
  • Property Practice
  • Probate Practice
  • Professional Conduct
  • Accounts
  • Tax Law

For my study schedule, I spent two days of studying each for civil and criminal litigation, business law, property practice, and probate practice. I spent about a day or two revising some basic principles from the subjects I had studied for the MCT, such as contract law, tort law, and criminal law, as a basic grasp of those principles are required for the OSCE. I then spent the remainder of my time practicing mock exam papers. The OSCE is much more practical in nature, so it is critically important for you to practice both the written and oral components of the OSCE – if you can, try to form a study group with other candidates in order to practice the required skills. I will go into more detail on what I did to prepare in the later sections below.

For logistics, I would recommend staying somewhere near King’s Cross, as there are multiple transport options there to get to the two exam venues. For myself, I stayed in Holborn, which was not a bad option as well. I would also recommend bringing some food and water to the exam hall, as the exam timings are not particularly concerned with the usual time for lunch or dinner. Although you will need to stash all of your belongings in a locker, there will be some table space to put some food and drinks to consume during the breaks. Also, remember to bring your passport – you will need to exchange it for a candidate pass.

The OSCE – Part I

Part I of the OSCE is all about oral skills, and tests three components: the client interview, the attendance note, and advocacy/presentation.

Client Interview

This part of the exam requires you to interview a “client” who has come to you for some legal advice, while taking notes of all information given to you and all legal advice you may have given to the client. You will be given 10 minutes to prepare based on an information pack – I used this time to formulate the questions I needed to ask the client based on the potential issues that arose from the facts. The focus here should be to gather the required information from the client in the 25 minutes allotted; otherwise, whatever legal advice you can give will inevitably be incomplete. I also used the 10 minutes of preparation time to quickly write a skeleton attendance note (see below for the structure), which most certainly saved me a lot of time.

For the interview itself, I asked general questions at the beginning and tried my best to show as much empathy as possible (as the client might very well be upset at his or her situation). I then focused on specific questions that dealt with the legal issues that might arise. I also used as little legalese as possible and focused on advising how the client might get to his or her desired outcome, even if it may be difficult on the facts. There’s no value in telling the client that nothing can be done and you’re of no help at all.

When taking the client interview notes, be sure to write as legibly and as neatly as you can, because you can simply append the client interview notes (label it “Appendix 1” at the top right hand corner) to the attendance note so that you won’t have to re-draft any of the facts and issues identified during the interview or any legal advice you may have given during the interview itself. Don’t hesitate to tell the client that you will need a moment or two to write down what was just talked about – it’s more important to write down the information you got than to hear all of the information you could possibly extract from the client.

Attendance Note

At the end of the client interview, you will be given 25 minutes to write an attendance note, which should include the following information:

  • Preliminary information, such as the date, name of client, the subject of the interview, and time engaged
  • The substantive sections, which should have: (a) an introduction; (b) the basic facts; (c) the client’s concerns and issues identified; (d) the legal advice (the most important section); and (e) the next steps to take.
  • A signature at the end (e.g. “John Smith, Junior Solicitor”)
Qlts preparation

I also appended my client interview notes as “Appendix 1” and made liberal references to it in the various sections (especially the sections on the basic facts and the client’s concerns).

I found this part of the exams to be rather challenging, simply because of the time pressure and hand fatigue from writing so much. I had definitely benefited from practising the actual writing of an attendance note – I wrote about three practice attendance notes under similar time pressures before stepping into the exam hall. If you would like me to send you some sample attendance notes, just drop me a message and I’ll be happy to oblige.

Advocacy/Presentation

You will be asked to give an oral presentation or advocacy piece in front of a 'client' or 'judge'. What is critical here is practice – there’s no way around it. You just have to find someone to act as a judge or a client to present either an advocacy piece or an analysis of a set of legal issues.

Advocacy is generally only applicable for civil and criminal litigation, and due to the fact that you’re given only 15 minutes to present (45 minutes to prepare), the questions are likely to be on interlocutory or summary matters that won’t require a full blown trial. For civil litigation, I practised a lot of moots on interlocutory applications (e.g. summary judgment, judgment in default, striking out, interim payment, etc), while for criminal litigation, I practised a lot on bail applications and mitigation pleas. It goes without saying that memorisation of the essential elements of each application is necessary. I spent my 45 minutes of preparation time reading the materials (which included the parties’ pleadings and witness statements) and made a bullet point script, and made a note of what is most likely going to determine the application, as the judge may (as mine did) wish to skip to those parts at the outset. For the actual advocacy, try to speak calmly and in a measured tone – I spoke rather slowly but I still only spent about 10-12 minutes going through the entire application and the judge’s questions, so don’t worry too much about the time.

The oral presentation will usually feature in business law and property/probate practice. This part will require a lot of memorisation of the law, because you will not be given any opportunity to research. What I did was to pick out various topics that I felt were likely to be tested and memorised every single thing about it. For example, in business law, I memorised whatever I could on interests in transactions, substantial property transactions, loans to directors, share transfers, insolvency and security interests, etc, while for property practice, I memorised whatever I could on the assignment of leases, sale of part of a property, security of tenure, etc. It is impossible to predict what will eventually come out, so it’s really about making an educated guess about what is possible in a 15 minute presentation and focusing on those topics.

The OSCE – Part II

Part II of the OSCE is all about skills at the desk, i.e. drafting, research, and writing. You will be given access to both Westlaw and Lexis, but in my experience only Lexis is required.

Drafting

You will be asked to draft something in 45 minutes that you have likely never seen before, e.g. filling in a certain form or following a certain template. For business law, it may be board minutes or draft resolutions; for civil/criminal litigation, it may be a claim form or draft order; and for property/probate practice, it may be to amend a will or filling in a tax form. I was sometimes given precedents to work from as a base, but they were never exactly on point and I remember having to synthesise various precedents into something that worked for the issue at hand. If no precedents are given, the Forms and Precedents section on Lexis may prove useful, but I wouldn’t recommend spending more than five to ten minutes locating one – if you can’t, just give up and come up with something on your own.

Qlts Preparation Books

What really helped me here was the QLTS Advantage, as it provided several exercises with model answers to work from. I had practised writing certain things such as drafting board minutes and resolutions and claim forms, so it wasn’t entirely alien to me when I went into the exam hall. I was also fairly familiar with locating precedents on Lexis, so I could quickly locate something useful and put it into my draft. If you don’t have or want to sign up with a course provider, you can attempt the Kaplan sample materials, which should give you a flavour of what kind of questions you may face and precedents you may need from Lexis.

Qlts Preparation Materials

Research

Qlts Preparation Course London

You will be asked to complete a research task in 60 minutes. It is critical here to practise using Lexis. If you’re with a firm that has access to Lexis, then you should definitely practise on a daily basis. If you’re not familiar with Lexis, go through the Lexis tutorials here: http://help.lexisnexis.com/tabula-rasa/rosetta/gh_tutorial-topic?lbu=GB&locale=en_GB&audience=legal. Also, try to be familiar with Boolean search terms – I found most of my answers simply by entering key words and the “w/3” connector.

The starting point (as many have said) should be the Halsbury’s Laws of England. In most scenarios, you will be able to find the answer there. However, there might be an obscure question of law that Halsbury’s won’t be able to assist. I have compiled here a list of the most useful resources you may resort to during the exam; it may be useful for you to memorise them and how to navigate there in Lexis:

  • General: Halsbury’s Laws of England, Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents
  • Criminal Litigation: Blackstone's Criminal Practice
  • Civil Litigation: Atkin's Court Forms, The Green Book, Butterworths Civil Court Practice
  • Property: Butterworths Property Law Service, Harvey & Redman's Law of Landlord and Tenant, Ross Commercial Property Precedents
  • Probate: BWPAS Probate Precedents, Tristan & Coote's Probate Precedents, Tristan & Coote's Probate Service, Tolley's Inheritance Tax
  • Business: BCLS Corporate Precedents, Butterworths Corporate Service

For the answer itself, you will be given two sections to fill in, “Advice to Give to the Client” and “Legal Reasoning Mentioning any Key Sources or Authorities”. What I did was to give, in the first section, both a short answer (in layman’s language) in bullet point form, and a long answer with all the legal reasoning and references (including case names and statutory provisions). Though the second section is named “Legal Reasoning”, I had used it entirely for the purpose of providing my sources of information by copying and pasting the “Location” information at the bottom right hand corner of Lexis. I found this to be a much better way of organising the information, and I did not seem to be hurt by it. If you would like me to send you some sample research answers, feel free to just ask by dropping me a message.

Writing

You will be asked to write a letter of advice to the client in 30 minutes. The time pressure here is immense – you will need to have the law at your fingertips as there is simply no time to do more than five minutes of research if you absolutely don’t know the answer. I had beforehand practiced drafting standard letters of advice, so I had walked into the exam hall with a template in my head that needed just some minor tweaking.

At the exam itself, what I did first was to draft the beginning and the end, as you will be marked down severely if you don’t have a complete letter to the client. It’s absolutely not worth it to lose marks simply by failing to tell the client that you’re contactable for further questions or failing to sign the letter off with the partner’s name. Also, don’t panic if you don’t know the answer to every part of the question posed to you. I remember not knowing the answer to one particular part of the question in one of the writing tests, but I had no time to find the answer, so I simply went with one (probably incorrect) position and wrote an intelligible (but not necessarily intelligent) piece of advice to the client.


Qlts Osce Preparation

And that’s it! I hope this has been helpful if you’re looking to take on the QLTS. If you’re of two minds on whether you want to take it, you should note that the QLTS is soon going to be replaced by a new “super exam” called the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE), which is a whole new unknown world, so I would definitely recommend taking the QLTS as soon as you can. I also hope that you can set aside sufficient time to prepare for the exams; I had most certainly sacrificed a certain amount of my lifespan preparing for it in just four weeks total, though it is demonstrably possible. As Leonard Bernstein said, “to achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”