The Solicitors Regulation Authority has announced that a spell check tool will be trialled for SQE2 written assessments in July. The absence of one was previously noted by the SQE's independent reviewer Ricardo Le and his predecessor.

'Without a spell-checking function, the validity of the SQE2 exams is hindered as they do not accurately replicate the context in which a day one solicitor would operate,' Le said in his annual report.

Up until now, markers have been given extra guidance to ensure candidates are not unfairly penalised for spelling errors that would have been picked up by a spell check function.

Before anyone moans 'if you can't spell, you shouldn't be a lawyer', a law lecturer has pointed out that the tool will be helpful to candidates who are, for instance, dyslexic or have other learning needs.

So the spell check tool is a welcome development. Let's just hope it's been programmed to recognise Latin phrases such as 'caveat emptor' or 'ex parte'? Obiter's spellchecker was fine with 'caveat emptor' but struggled with 'ex parte', wanting to change it to 'ex parted', 'ex prate' or 'ex part'. 

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