Snowflake solicitors are destroying a once proud profession

Telegraph

2 days ago

Britain's legal profession – once a byword for rigour, intellect and integrity – now finds itself the latest battleground in the war against excellence. A cohort of aspiring solicitors has taken to petitioning for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) to be made easier. Their complaint? The exams are 'too hard, disproportionately challenging ', and, of course, 'biased towards certain backgrounds and learning styles '. In other words: 'We didn't do well, and it must be someone else's fault.'
There could hardly be a more telling parable of our times. The snowflake sensibility – once confined to undergraduate common rooms and the wilder fringes of social media – has now infected even the corridors of legal ambition. The future custodians of our justice system are not asking for a level playing field; they are asking for the pitch to be tilted until everyone scores.
The argument, if we can call it that, is that maintaining high standards will inevitably restrict 'diversity' in the profession. And here we are again, at the familiar intersection where merit collides with identity politics – and where the latter is expected to triumph, no matter the cost. This isn't about widening opportunity. It is about lowering the bar.
Having sat more than a dozen legal exams across three jurisdictions – from the halls of Cambridge to the benches of the Sorbonne, and ultimately the famously exacting New York bar – I speak from a place of experience. These were not fun. I lost a stone in weight during one set of particularly punishing exams. They were not 'inclusive'. They were not designed to reflect my personal learning style. They were difficult. That was the point. And when I passed them, I felt a precious sense of achievement and readiness for the real world of legal practice.
And therein lies a truth we are fast forgetting: standards are not meant to flatter us, they are meant to test us. The whole premise of a professional exam is that it provides an independent measure of competence. It is meant to be hard. It is meant to discriminate: not on the basis of race or class, but on the basis of skill, preparation and effort. That is not injustice. That is fairness.
If I'm paying a lawyer, a doctor, or a pilot for their services, I do not want someone who merely feels entitled to the role. I want someone who has earned their place. Their colour, class or creed do not matter to me. What matters, and should matters, is their calibre. And if that view now makes me unfashionable, then so be it.
But the consequences of this race to the bottom go far beyond a few disgruntled exam-takers. Undermining legal standards risks hollowing out one of the UK's most formidable exports: our legal profession itself. English law is the governing framework of choice for international commerce precisely because it has been shaped by a world-class profession. A profession forged through rigour, not rhetoric.
Flooding it with underprepared entrants – however well-meaning or well-intentioned – will not promote equity. It will diminish excellence. And it is the very people supposedly being helped who will suffer most, entering a crowded profession where oversupply drives down wages and erodes prestige.
Here, then, is the central paradox: in the name of inclusion, we exclude the very mechanisms that uplift. Hard work. Discipline. Ambition. Standards. The old virtues are being recast as vices: elitism, snobbery, oppression. And all to appease a cultural mood that seems to confuse equal opportunity with equal outcomes.
But Britain cannot afford this decline. Not in a century where the likes of China, India, and the United States are training their brightest and best to surpass us. While they chase excellence, we chase excuses.
This is not compassion. It is cowardice, disguised in the language of empathy. It is not progress, it is entropy. And unless we reclaim the idea that standards matter – that excellence should be earned, and that challenge is a feature, not a flaw, of a functioning society – then we will become a country incapable of producing not just good lawyers, but good professionals of any kind.