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Well, who would have thought it?

Past articles in this legal organ have reported the tie ups and falling outs of Big City firms with the providers of solicitorial (?) qualification. This mechanism must take time and effort (which is money) and provide hatched solicitors who have nowhere to go for a year or 3 - ignoring maybe difficult to enforce restrictive covenants - with little opportunity to jump ship as no new employer will want "turn" the incomers to their ways (more money). So this article does not surprise me.

A single examination point of entry torpedoes their ship with all hands.

The vast majority of aspirants to admission don't have this (laudable) support, and rely on mum and dad, their bank or their nerve. Their future will be decided by the subjective/objective/prejudice/ignorance of those to whom they apply for employment of their route to qualification.

Which won't apply if all examinees take the same exam. Whatever it is - and tick boxes especially if the answers are nuanced from 10 to 5 is not bad - and however it is made up.

A single exam - as taken by every solicitor from Big Firm to Small Firm when I qualified (1966) - didn't do any harm.