From winning the 2026 Best Firm Overall Award to preparing for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), Kent Law School graduate Amena Croxton has spent the past year developing the practical skills, resilience and teamwork needed for a career as a solicitor. Reflecting on her experience of the Integrated Master’s in Solicitors’ Practice (MLaw), she shares why she chose the course, what she learned from its unique ‘firm’ structure and how it prepared her for the realities of legal practice.
‘I am a first-generation university student, and I recently completed an Integrated Master’s in Solicitors Practice (MLaw). I began as an LLB undergraduate, and it was not until my third year that I made the decision to transfer onto the MLaw.
Why I made the switch to MLaw:
The decision came from a combination of academic and personal reasons. I had been looking for a course that prepared students directly for the SQE, rather than one that treated professional qualification as a separate step to figure out later, and the MLaw offered exactly that. I had always intended to remain in academia for an additional year beyond my undergraduate degree, but that intention was reinforced by circumstance. During my final undergraduate year, I was unexpectedly unable to attend university for three months and had to complete the most demanding part of the course through independent study at home. That period required a level of resilience and self‑direction I had not anticipated, and although I succeeded, it left me feeling that I had not been able to finish my degree in the way I had originally envisioned. Continuing on to the MLaw felt like the right way to complete that chapter properly, rather than leaving it unresolved.
There were practical considerations at play too. I had worked two jobs to cover the cost of accommodation in Canterbury, so the financial terms offered to returning Kent students made the integrated Master’s route more accessible than it might otherwise have been. Beyond the practicalities, I had also come to feel at home in the area. I had arrived at Kent anxious about being several hours from family, moving from a quiet village in the Midlands into what felt, at the time, like an intimidating step into city life. However, Canterbury turned out to be neither distant nor overwhelming, it became somewhere I thought of as a second home.
What the MLaw Year Actually Involves:
The MLaw is distinctive in a few ways. It runs over one year and can be taken either as the MLaw or the LLM, a couple of the students in my firm were doing the LLM option, which has an extra summer module and a dissertation, neither of which the MLaw requires.
What the MLaw does require is motivation, and organisation. The teaching format departs from a conventional lecture-and-seminar model: sessions are practical, built around extending the reading you have already done rather than introducing it for the first time. If that preparation is missed, the impact is felt not only individually but by the wider team, since much of the course is built around collaborative work. The assessments reflected this shift in approach. They were considerably more demanding than anything I had encountered at undergraduate level, but that difficulty served a clear purpose: moving students away from a purely critical, essay-based mode of thinking and towards the kind of practical reasoning the profession actually requires.
Each term pairs two modules; for example, in the Spring term we studied Property Law and Practice alongside Business Law and Practice. Both modules are assessed through written and oral components. The oral assessments are designed to reflect the skills examined in SQE2, offering a taste of the client‑interviewing and advisory scenarios you will encounter in practice. Meanwhile, the written assessments focus on SQE1 and SQE2‑aligned competencies, requiring you to apply legal knowledge to practical, client‑focused problems.
The Firm and Points System:
The aspect of the course that shaped my experience most was the firm and points structure. On the first day, we were placed into random groups, or “firms.” There is a deliberate levelling effect to this: no one is choosing teams, and no one begins at a disadvantage by arriving without an existing network. Students who join from outside the Kent undergraduate cohort are immediately integrated into Kent Law School life, entering on equal footing with everyone else. It creates a fresh start, where your experience is shaped by the work you do as a group.
I was placed with a group of committed and supportive individuals, and the way we worked together became one of the most valuable parts of the year. We answered questions collectively in class, supported one another through assessments, and built friendships that extended beyond class. The structure was effective because it required us to build trust and efficiency with people we had not chosen and had no prior relationship with, a dynamic that mirrors the experience of working within a professional team.
Winning Best Firm Overall:
Each firm’s name was assigned according to a letter drawn at random; ours became the iconic “Bills, Bills and Bills.” Despite the funny name, our group worked with unwavering commitment throughout the year, and ultimately, we went on to win the Best Firm Overall Award for 2026.
The prize was a day in London with Darren Weir, head of the MLaw programme. We visited the Law Society on Chancery Lane and met Mark Evans, the current Law Society President, and Steven Drew, who gave us a tour of the building and its library. Afterwards, we had lunch at The Honourable Society of Middle Temple. We also took a brief detour to the British Museum, and the day concluded with a performance of Witness for the Prosecution at County Hall. Our day was a fitting close to a demanding year, and a reminder of the effort that had brought our firm to that point.
What’s Next:
I am hoping to sit the SQE in either January or July 2027, with the exact timing dependent on securing a legal role following graduation: a process that, like many students, I am approaching with an awareness of how competitive the current job market is. In the meantime, I am pursuing opportunities such as paralegal positions, trainee solicitor roles, and legal secretary work, with the aim of building further practical experience ahead of qualification.
One of the clearest lessons from my time at Kent has been the importance of professional connections, and how much value there is in engaging with employability opportunities early. I did not begin using my Employability Points until my final year, and it was only then that I recognised how much access they could provide, whether to firm-based experiences or time spent observing proceedings in the Crown Courts. However, what struck me throughout is how generous legal professionals are with their time and support for students entering the profession.
My final tip of advice:
For anyone considering a law degree, or a further qualification such as the MLaw, my advice would be to approach the process with resilience and an open mind. The path is demanding, there is a significant volume of reading, and assessments that test more than memory. However, the value of the experience extends well beyond the coursework itself. Some of the most formative relationships and opportunities of my degree came directly from the people I met through Kent Law School and through the MLaw’s firm structure. The course is difficult, but that difficulty has been worth it.
For Darren Weir, Director of Solicitors’ Practice at Kent Law School, Amena’s experience reflects exactly what the course is designed to achieve. ‘Amena has identified all of the great things about the Solicitiors’ Practice Course at Kent. As she says, it is a tough course. But this is necessary to transition from the academic study of law to practice. Amena’s work ethic and approach meant that she thrived in the environment. She is going to make one hell of a lawyer.’
