1. What’s your background, and why did you decide to do the SQE?

I qualified as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2015 after successfully

completing my law degree and passing the law school exams. After gaining about 7 years post

qualification experience, I moved to the UK to pursue a master’s degree with the College of Law,

University of Birmingham where I graduated with a distinction. Following several unsuccessful

attempts to break into legal practice as a foreign qualified lawyer after my graduation, I researched on the options available to me to get a UK legal qualification and the SQE presented the best route for me. I chose the SQE over other qualification pathways because it would give me a variety of practice options that align with my career goals, from in-house legal advisory to litigation to public service. Knowing that I could get an exemption from SQE 2 on the basis of my prior professional experience made the SQE more appealing. From the day I saw photos of people standing on the entrance stairs in the Law Society building during their admission ceremony, I knew I would want to take a similar photo surrounded by my family and friends. As little as this was, the picture I had created in my mind provided motivation on the tough days.

2. How did you prepare, and what made the biggest difference in your success?

I purchased the SQE textbooks from University of Law started off reading them one course at a time. I had a study group with a few other persons preparing for the exams and in the initial months we would meet two times a week to review questions in our ULaw textbooks and topics that were challenging. Along the line, I realised that I struggled with active recall due to the sheer volume of the reading material and I needed to find a way to commit the information to memory. This was the point where I was introduced to Law Drills by a colleague who had passed the January 2025 exams on first attempt. He was patient to explain the approach he took with Law Drills and how practicing questions enhanced his preparation. I subscribed to Law Drills’ three-month plan in May 2025, less than 10 weeks to my exams scheduled for July 2025 and this made a huge difference in my preparation. Law Drills helped me understand questions better and tackle them faster. The style and language of the questions were designed to help candidates understand legal principles, identify exceptions and recognise tricky language. After doing a couple hundred questions, I could easily assess my level of preparation for the exams by looking at my dashboard. I was able to identify the topics I had understood very well, the ones I was struggling with and ultimately where I needed to focus my efforts in the weeks to the exams. What appeared to be an unending practice of questions turned out to be the internalisation of knowledge and the strengthening of areas of weakness. Over a space of 9-12 weeks, I concluded the reading of my texts and practiced about 1500 questions on Law Drills. By combining revision with practice questions, I increased my knowledge, developed my ability to tackle questions under time constraints and positioned myself to face the exam with calmness and confidence. When the results were released in September 2025, I had passed SQE 1 on first attempt scoring in quintile 1 for both FLK 1 and FLK 2.

3. What was the hardest part, and how did you push through it?

The hardest part for me was combining self-study with my full-time role and my other commitments. I started studying for the July 2025 exams in December 2024 and after the first couple of weeks, I was unsure if I would be able to sit the exam. At the time, I worked in a very challenging role that came with unsocial hours and I struggled to maintain a definite reading timetable. When I identified my peculiar challenge, I decided to stop worrying about not hitting a specific number of hours everyday and start maximising all the time I could find. I would read in the evening on days when I had afternoon finish times, early in the morning on days when I had afternoon start times and through the night on days when I worked night shifts. I knew that the only way I could cover the course content was to utilise all the pockets of hours I could squeeze in the course of my day and on my rest days when I was not on duty at work. Another key strategy I employed was using my annual leave days for SQE1 prep. I had pre booked annual leave days for the second half of June and the first half of July. I also used ad-hoc leave days; for instance, where I had two working days between two rest days, I would book the working days off to get a stretch of four days when I could combine day and night reading. In addition, I listened to SQE1 lecture podcasts on Spotify when I made the 40-minute drive to work, using the opportunity to solidify my knowledge. The combination of these strategies helped me manage the challenge of making time to study and enabled me to carve out ample preparation time. By the time SQE1 was over, I had used up over 70% of my annual leave but it was all worth it when I passed, I will resume holidaying in 2026.

4. If you had to do it again, what would you do differently?

If I had to do SQE1 again, I would start my preparation earlier than I did so that I can cover the

content with sufficient time left to practice exam-style questions. My initial target was to finish

reading my course materials with at least 10-12 weeks for revision and practice questions but I had highly underestimated the volume of the content and found myself still reading some topics in May/June. Another related thing I would have done differently is to start doing practice questions earlier than I did. My target was to do 2500 questions on Law Drills but I was only able to do about 1500 (of course I did all the other free questions I could find) due to time constraints. SQE1 is really broad and candidates need to devote adequate time to studying and practicing to improve their chances of passing the assessment. When I started using Law Drills, I used to score between 45-55% on my mocks, a score I knew would be a gamble going into the exams. In the final week before each FLK I scored above the recommended 63% on my mocks (even higher in mocks from other providers) and this greatly boosted my confidence going into the exams.

5. Any final piece of advice for SQE candidates?

My final advice would be to understand your personal circumstances, identify your strengths and weaknesses and find a study approach that fits around these things. In my case, I have always known that things tend to stick when I write them so I printed off the assessment specification from the SRA website and wrote very short notes under each heading for every course. Writing the principles and exceptions gave me a better understanding of the concepts and helped me retain the information. As a wife and mum in full-time employment, I tried my best to build my study schedule around my work and personal commitments, maximising the moments I could get instead of feeling bad about the hours I was unable to study. In addition, I would advice candidates to build a strong support system as it is very important to have people who can take some of the burden off you and encourage you on the tough days. My family and my study partners provided solid support for me in the months leading up to the exams and I am grateful for them. Finally, find ways to unwind and destress when you feel the pressure building, take a break and come back when you feel refreshed. Always remember your “why”.