Ethics and Professional Conduct in SQE1: SRA Principles and Codes

How is ethics tested across SQE1?

Ethics and Professional Conduct is examined pervasively across FLK1 and FLK2 and can arise in any subject area. You apply the SRA Principles and Codes of Conduct to realistic client situations, choosing the single best answer. The expected standard is that of a competent newly qualified solicitor. (SRA, SQE1 Assessment Specification)

Ethics can therefore arise within a transaction, a dispute or advice about a client’s affairs. From the January 2027 sitting, each FLK session covers a fixed group of subjects, but ethics can still be tested in every session. (SRA announcement, 10 September 2026) Read every problem for professional obligations as well as substantive law. A client’s preferred outcome is only part of the analysis: you also need to identify what the solicitor may properly do.

What is the format and weighting?

Each single best answer question offers five options, with one correct answer. SQE1 is closed book and tests the application of fundamental rules, rather than specialist detail a newly qualified solicitor would look up. Our guide to single best answer questions explains a practical answering routine. (SRA, SQE1 Assessment Specification)

Annex 4 says Ethics and Professional Conduct and money laundering questions together can make up to 20% of the questions assessed in an SQE1 sitting across FLK1 and FLK2. Money laundering is assessed in FLK1 only. This is a combined upper limit, not a guaranteed ethics allocation. (SRA, SQE1 Annex 4) See the Legal Services guide for the wider regulatory and money laundering syllabus.

What does the SRA specification cover?

The specification requires knowledge of the purpose, scope and content of the SRA Principles and the individual Code of Conduct. It also includes the Code of Conduct for Firms in relation to managers in authorised firms and compliance officers. Questions can involve situations covered by relevant SRA warning notices, including non-disclosure agreements and Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs). (SRA, SQE1 Assessment Specification)

The Principles set the ethical foundations for regulated individuals and firms. The individual Code applies to practice-related conduct across different working environments, subject to the Overseas Rules for practice overseas. Paragraphs 8.1–8.11, covering client identification, complaints, client information and publicity, apply only when providing services to the public or a section of the public. Read each duty with its scope in mind. (SRA Principles) (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

What do the SRA Principles require?

The seven Principles cover the following obligations, summarised here as a revision map. (SRA Principles)

Where Principles conflict, those protecting the wider public interest take precedence over an individual client’s interests. This includes the rule of law and public confidence in a trustworthy profession. Where relevant, tell the client in which circumstances your duty to the court and other professional obligations will outweigh your duty to them. (SRA Principles)

Which Code duties should you connect to client matters?

Organise the individual Code around the work being done. The following groups are a selection for revision; use the full Code to check the conditions and exceptions. (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

• Taking instructions and providing services: proper authority to instruct, competence, timely service, client needs and effective supervision.
• Fair dealing and proceedings: discrimination, unfair advantage, undertakings, misleading conduct, evidence, witnesses, properly arguable submissions and duties to the court.
• Money and business arrangements: safeguarding entrusted assets, accounting for financial benefits, referrals, fee sharing and separate businesses. For the accounting rules, see our Solicitors Accounts guide.
• Relationships and information: conflicts, confidentiality, disclosure, identifying the client, complaints, costs information, publicity and explaining regulatory protections.
• Accountability: cooperation with regulators, reporting obligations and openness with clients when things go wrong.

Under the Firms Code, managers are responsible for their firm’s compliance with that Code, jointly and severally where management is shared. The Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (COLP) has responsibilities for regulatory compliance; the Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration (COFA) focuses on Accounts Rules compliance. Both roles include taking all reasonable steps to ensure prompt reporting to the SRA of matters reasonably believed capable of amounting to serious breaches within their remit. (SRA Code of Conduct for Firms)

Which traps should you check for?

Treating consent as a universal solution

An own interest conflict, or a significant risk of one, prevents acting under paragraph 6.1, with no consent exception. Paragraph 6.2 prohibits acting where there is a client conflict or a significant risk of one, subject to limited exceptions: a substantially common interest in the matter or relevant aspect of it, or competition for the same objective. These also require every affected client’s informed consent given or evidenced in writing, effective confidentiality safeguards where appropriate, and satisfaction that acting for all the clients is reasonable. Check every condition before choosing an answer that proposes consent. (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

Confusing confidentiality with disclosure to the client

Paragraph 6.3 protects current and former clients’ affairs, subject to consent or disclosure required or permitted by law. When acting for a client on a matter, paragraph 6.4 requires making them aware of all information you know that is material to that matter, subject to its specified exceptions. Paragraph 6.5 separately restricts acting where the client’s interest is adverse to that of a current or former client of you, your business or your employer, and confidential information held for that other client by you, your business or your employer is material to the matter. Identify whose information it is and who would receive it before applying an exception. (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

Equating client loyalty with permission to mislead

The Code prohibits misleading clients, courts or others, including through omissions or complicity in someone else’s conduct. Submissions must be properly arguable. Relevant authorities or procedural irregularities known to the solicitor and likely to affect the outcome materially must be drawn to the court’s attention. A helpful answer for the client must still respect those obligations. (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

Assuming delegation removes responsibility

Supervisors remain accountable for work carried out through others. Under paragraph 7.12, providing information to your firm’s COLP or COFA can satisfy an obligation to notify or provide information to the SRA, where appropriate and on the understanding that they will do so. Simply assuming someone else will deal with a problem misses that condition. (SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors)

How should you practise ethics?

Keep ethics in your revision across both papers. For each practice question, identify the client, the solicitor’s role, the proposed action and any competing duties. State the governing rule before comparing the options. Then check whether an exception exists and whether the facts meet all its conditions.

After answering, record the decisive fact and the reason the closest alternative failed. Revisit errors alongside questions from different subjects. Keep the Principles and the relevant Code provision together in your notes: aim to explain both the ethical obligation and the action it requires.

Start with the free SQE1 quick test, then use the SQE1 course overview to plan further practice. This guide is a syllabus and revision overview, not a complete statement of professional obligations or legal advice.

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