FE1 Exam Thread (Read 1st post!) NOTE: YOU MAY SWAP EXAM GRIDS

Katniss1998 wrote: »

Dear Deputy,

I am contacting you regarding the erroneous treatment of candidates sitting the Law Society of Ireland Final Entrance Examinations (FE-1s). The FE-1s take place in March and October annually. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these exams were cancelled and postponed respectively.

The FE1s are a demanding set of entrance exams to kickstart the process of qualifying as a solicitor in Ireland, in subjects already passed in an undergraduate law degree. The exams are both expensive and time-consuming, costing €100 each to take (and there are eight exams) as well as the cost of organising accommodation in Dublin for the duration of exams which are spread over two weeks. Due to their difficult nature, it is very challenging to work while studying for the FE1s at the best of times, considering the amount of annual leave required. So the choice is between working and trying to study at the same time or not working at all, which is financially impossible for many graduates.

Two examinations were cancelled in March due to Covid 19 and rescheduled for August. This resulted in the announcement of the October sitting in September giving students only four weeks to prepare. In order to display the significance of this delay, typically a candidate will sit 4 exams per sitting, these exams are 3 hours long and equate to about 10 credits of undergraduate material each. This means that in each sitting, a candidate is covering approximately 40 credits of work, which is two thirds of a year at undergrad. Thus, a candidate has less than a month to prepare almost a year’s worth of materials.

The Law Society of Ireland then rescheduled the October sitting for the first week in November due to Level three restrictions in Dublin. Following the announcement of the whole country being put into Level three restrictions, the Law Society have failed to provide any information about when they plan to hold these exams and how they plan to do so. They have stated on their website:

“Given the announcement by the Government on 5 October that the country is to move to Level 3 of its Plan for Living with Covid-19 for the next three weeks, the Law Society of Ireland has decided that it will not be possible to hold a physical sitting of the Final Examination First Part ('FE-1') in November.
A decision to hold a physical examination was dependent on the country remaining at or below Level 2 of the Plan for Living with Covid-19.
The Law Society is continuing work on the provision of an online examination and further information will provided early next week.”

This is despite the Law Society first claiming on Monday that they would let us know what was happening by the end of this week. With under four weeks to the proposed date of the exams, they have failed to provide candidates with any timetable or information surrounding how such exams would take place. The absence of communication from the Law Society has created undue stress to candidates who have insufficient time to prepare and those who must inform their employers and take annual leave. I have friends who have been asked to quit their jobs due to their inability to clarify when their annual leave needs to be taken.

We have now been living with COVID-19 for over six months. We have all adapted and overcome this challenge so far. All higher education institutions have risen to the challenge and managed to facilitate students online, including the Kings Inns entrance exams which were for our legal colleagues, barristers. The Law Society have had half a year to provide contingency plans and to consider alternative arrangements for the sitting of FE1s, yet have still provided no clarity to candidates. The Law Society continue to blatantly disregard the welfare of the future of their profession, choosing to update their own website rather than email candidates directly, causing students to anxiously refresh their website hoping for some relief and information. Emails are left ignored and unopened, and a student helpline set up to answer questions on the FE1s goes straight to a voicemail. Candidates have had calls ended multiple times when they call with a query about the FE1s.

The reality is that people are going to end up losing their training contracts due to these delays. Training contracts are already notoriously difficult to obtain, especially having regard to the uncertain economic situation at present where many law firms are choosing to place a hold on recruitment. There are deadlines in our contracts and we may lose them over the Law Society not organising a sitting for us before these deadlines, and these delays will have a knock-on effect for people planning on sitting in March 2021 too, as they would have planned on starting their study after the October sitting.

Rather than consider the dire situation many students face, the Law Society refuses to consider alternative means of examination such as open book exams, in order to promote the “integrity of the exams”.

I ask that you write to the Law Society of Ireland and Ministers for Higher Education and Justice on my behalf to request adequate notice for these exams.

If you are interested in seeing some more perspectives on the stress this is causing, please see https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058049253&page=390

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

[name]

Hazel774 wrote: »

No information on whether we'll need laptops with webcams and strong wifi for 3 hours if we're being remotely supervised...