FACCT THEORY
FACCT THEORY
UK SQE1 - November 2021 Results Published on February 13, 2022
A good primer for this article is B.L.I.P.:
Dive in and keep up with the action, jump into the middle of the story where I am sending series of correspondence to the United Kingdom SRA about my scheduled exam to practice law in England. The heat is turned up in this transcript before the final philosophy becomes focused.
As always a disclaimer: readers should take from this report what they will; define the meaning in your own right.
Good Morning Pearson Vue, Kaplan, & UK Solicitors Regulation Authority, Referencing the November 2021 Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE1): SQE1 Study Guides Here We Go... No alt text provided for this image According to SRA, the exam policy states: Please note the following before booking to sit SQE1 in the following locations: USA and Canada. Due to the Veterans Day public holiday on 11 November, we currently do not have test centres available in the USA and Canada on that date. We do have availability on 8 Nov in the USA and Canada, however FLK1 and FLK2 must be attempted in the same sitting. Candidates may therefore wish to book a test centre in another country. We are continuing to investigate if any test centres will be able to open on 11 November in Canada. Unfortunately no test venues will be available in the USA. We will provide an update here if any become available. Available test centres will be also shown on the booking page. My Findings: Linked is the UK fall 2021 guidance on quarantining, which is eleven (11) pages: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12aVK6YKT3r1sbwn1afUt_BV1E0LnjllT/view?usp=sharing
Captain Grant M. Saxena, USA, Retired - SQE1 Practice Quizzes: 95-98th Percentile
A note of advocacy is required to argue that it is incorrigibly uncivilized for Kaplan, the SRA, the UK government or any entity to require a disabled person who has paid for their SQE testing to:
1. Mandatory Vaccination Test Before Travel or Quarantine. - Some disabled persons may not be able to vaccinate at all, due to the health risks involved. Quarantining is not generally considered mentally healthy either in the psychology world and therefore cannot be imposed on a vulnerable person as this action brings burden of and unnecessary infliction of emotional abuse. Either way, all persons must acquire costly medical tests before, during and after embarking regardless of vaccination or health.
2. Expend Disability Benefits on Required Quarantine Lodging For 10 days. - Unvaccinated persons must shelter, at cost, in hotels for 1.5 weeks with two required government tests and daily check-ins like you're on criminal house arrest. It is uncivilized to require a disabled person to use their tax-free monies, for private costs associated with mandatory vaccination, when there is a test center in New York City, New York - the United States of America offering the first part of this test 3 days prior.
3. Not Provide An SQE Center, for Disabled Adults, in America. - Particular prejudice is shown, because the logic stated by SRA for not offering the test is based solely on the Nov 11th "holiday." An American federally recognized holiday does not affect private corporations and their operating hours as per federal business laws. There is absolutely no legal, moral, ethical, or sane reason why the private Pearson NYC test center cannot open on Nov 11th, only for disabled persons who apply as a medical exception. The point is: saving the person from having to travel out of country for their paid SQE FLK2 test. 4. Rely on a Bahamas-based USA Alternative: When Parliament Initiated a State of Emergency. The Bahamas are off-limits until November due to covid and that time of year is directly in the middle of hurricane season. The Bahamas were simply chosen because of their proximity to the British empire, not the realistic opportunity for American test-takers to succeed. To expect a reasonable person to fly out of the country, into a third world island which is in a state of emergency, while hitting hurricanes, moreover: to require punishment in order to access the student's paid test and work opportunities beyond, is actually cruel and unusual regulatory discrimination.
The final concept within this SQE FLK2 American testing paradigm is that: SQE Mitigating Circumstances department is going to be severely overloaded from this situation. Rather than open up a can of worms by forcing SQE1 tests out of the country during a global pandemic, with quarantine restrictions, natural disasters and so on - which will inevitably have a detrimental effect on test takers - what reason really exists that our brightest intellects can't facilitate not accommodate these test centers running multiple choice questions, in America, all controlled by the same private conglomerate? SRA, Pearson, and Kaplan have created a situation where every single American is required to move out of the USA to test for the NOV SQE FLK2. This almost seems like a form of social sabotage, or a way to boycott America... without the UK, SRA, Kaplan, or anyone having a legal or legitimate argument. So, every single American would potentially have an argument under mitigating circumstances rules, because of the arduous nature of the travel restrictions imposed to access the test, which has already been paid for and cannot be refunded fully at this stage in the process.
The USA is in a bad state of affairs, yet the compassion of the organizations representing legal access internationally should not punish the independent students who happen to reside in the USA. I'm an American and always will be, and I can also no longer feel an affinity towards the political climate. I don't have to like my leaders to be a Patriot. However, at my international politics summer school at Oxford this year, the malice towards our country was extremely permeable and palpable even over Zoom, so I know the issue is material. Therefore and regardless of the multi-faceted reasons why: by not proactively requiring the opening of the New York and Miami Pearson test centers on a viable date of 11 NOV, the SRA is intentionally and negligently requiring travel that will unequally cause severe detriment to the future UK solicitors. It's even conceivable that someone could die from covid, as a result of trying to reach their test center in another country, or hemisphere. This travel is unrealistic to ask of anyone, humbly speaking, yet cruel to burden a cripple war hero with. No human should have to jeopardize their life over an issue so trivial that it all boils down to: A private test center that is frivolously attempting to stay closed through false logic of dates coinciding on a public holiday. True civil rights impediment occur because the test of the SQE is a barrier to entry for employment, life, liberty, and accessibility to resources which determine livelihood.
There are no other options but to demand that at least 1 American test center be opened on Nov 11th for the SQE FLK2, and accessibility to schedule made available by Kaplan appointment closure of 5pm on 27 September 2021. Here is a copy of my handicapped car plates and a more current VA letter. I've written about a 2,000 word argument on why this accommodation is necessary for myself, but moreover, the entire future solicitor population. The previous attempts to travel to the Bahamas and even England were not supported by my caregiver, who flat out refused to make the travel based on her professional expertise regarding health issues. No alt text provided for this image The SRA website says our booking window closes at "5pm on Sep 27th" with no time zone... so I'm using GMT. Which means, I am now locked in, at least on the website for this completely unrealistic travel to Manchester, England based on my disability. I did not reschedule anything in SQE booking after many runarounds and one conversation with Kaplan that lasted hours. I really believe that with the New York City Test Center open on 8 November, which is literally a few blocks from the 9/11 world trade center rubble... that someone with compassion, will open up the test on 11 November for a 100% disabled Captain from West Point, which the United States Military Academy is one hour away up the Hudson River. This is the home of patriotism.
Isn't it ironic, in a way, that the test center is shut down and won't be opened on Veterans Day, a day when we're supposed to celebrate those who have sacrificed all for the betterment of others. I gave 13 years of active duty service to America and NATO, including tours overseas where I was hit by a tank, had a rocket propelled grenade blow up in my face, and broke my neck on a night U.S. Army Airborne Ranger mission... eventually I was medically retired after succeeding as the Brigade's #1 Commander. I still look back on that part of my life with a lot of pride and honor. Yet a 100% crippled hero, from war service, who brought every single soldier in my platoon home alive, is now being abused, because the Kaplan SQE Pearson center wants to use the public holiday, as an excuse for a private company to not support that same soldier... who is desperately struggling to reintegrate into a society that has no material value for him or his contributions. This amount of wasted energy is all over the ability to take a test to simply get a credential for a job? Tell me that someone sees the ridiculous nature of what the UK SRA expects: a 100% disabled veteran to accomplish on Veterans day... fly out of America to take a professional credentialed test, that he's trying to obtain, solely for helping others. Please let me know the next steps to reschedule for the NYC dates and center.
Despite the issues, I drove to the airport for a red eye and was going to put my life in danger to take this test. As fate would have it: Due to the unethical fiasco of being forced to fly for my paid test, which was always available in Las Vegas: Frontier Airlines has now cancelled all their flights to Miami until Tuesday. After going to the airport, wasting 2 hours to check-in - I was never issued a boarding pass and told the flight was cancelled.
This is the fourth time, starting with NYC, the Bahamas then transferring me to England then back to the Bahamas and now to Miami that Kaplan has forced me to make a new flight or new hotel reservation which was then canceled. All because Kaplan will not deliver this test at the Pearson center in Las Vegas or anywhere on the west coast of America that could be travel to reasonably in a vehicle. For the past quarter of one year, the SRA, starting with Mr. Allen has given me false information about testing for SQE1. Direct negligence by all parties cost $5,000 in torts through rescheduling the SQE1 test, which was not made available in America for handicapped veterans to test. Ms. Hardy has now come to the internal conclusion (which will not stand up in front of a jury) that zero unethical professional procedures occurred. I have sent a 35 page itemized list of the damages, which include flights to the Bahamas, hotels, and the cost of the test itself. I've become a reluctant international covid quarantine expert in laws for the US, Canada, Bahamas, UK, Ireland... planning out different trips to see if I could maybe take the first half in the US and fly the Bahamas for the second. At some point, actual studying kind of became secondary to this larger arbitration. I never turned in actual testing accommodations which would include more time, a valuable asset in a crunched environment. These charges were never refunded.
Beyond the SQE, what additional restitution is owed by the businesses to provide cover costs of the non-recoverable items associated with making erroneous reservations, because of your obvious internal policy errors. There's a $700 hotel rental in Bahamas made around all these restrictions as itemized. I have made the complaint pretty clear and electronically served my notice of a pending federal lawsuit on Ms. Hardy, who only recommended I file more pointless letters within Pearson/Kaplan/SRAs inundated joint system and seems to desire the federal lawsuit on behalf of it's cohort. The presented course of action, to complain to the internal judges does not work for me, as this issue has been ongoing with no action from Mr. Allen since July, when SRA charged thousands to my credit card for the SQE test not made available in The United States. It's like they are playing cat and mouse with me, at this stage I've lost track of the number of attorney's stacked on the other side. My beacon of hope is Capital One credit card litigators: who have already arbitrated in my favor for the cost of the exam itself.
If I'm able to win this dispute against England's Solicitor Authority pro se, then the UK SRA needs to induct me honorarily. There is no need to take a practitioners test that is flawed and whose board of legal experts is unable to defeat the research findings I've unearthed at great lengths. Is it more valuable to navigate a bureaucracy for it's profit, or to use the knowledge therein to make actionable changes for the betterment of citizens?
To date, I have not heard back from anyone, so stay tuned for the Chapter of International Lawsuit: Captain Grant Mitchell Saxena, U.S.A., Retired vs. United Kingdom Solicitors Regulation Authority. Part of me is disenfranchised by the clear regression our nations have executed after hundreds of years post-revolutionary war. It seems the age old grudges passed down from institutions, to people, and culture pervade even an allegedly civilized society. At this juncture, I'm not sure how things will pan out - there is another SQE1 test scheduled in July that I might attempt. Finally, the US state of Vermont attorney licensing counsel is reviewing my application to attempt their bar exam with a foreign education equivalency, as I have started a post-graduate diploma in law (PGDL) at the UK University of Law matriculating this fall. If Vermont denies my application for PGDL FEE, then like a game of chess I have been checked into a corner of US mandating I obtain a terminal law practitioners degree: latin legum magister or LL.M. This LL.M. degree requires another year of in-person attendance and still limits the number of states that would accept the degree as bar exam worthy.
Since another article will be published on this foreign equivalency facet to the US, I won't delve too deeply into the subject by concluding that logically a fallacy exists. How can a lower degree like a juris doctor allow a person to practice law; then a terminal higher degree that takes years more to acquire, aka an LL.M, is specifically forbidden as qualifying education in dozens of US jurisdictions. Generally, it seems that the regulating authorities have allowed sub-entities to make rules that are in direct violation of the parent constitutional codes, which illustrates our collective confused mentality at it's finest. We need more rules to bring us together versus separating us apart.
I surmise this tenant of Gonzo Academia: 'tis better to hurl oneself into life's vortex of chaos emerging on the other side a bit burnt but wiser, than to exist in cold conscious naivety. Without failure, then true success can never be known, understood, nor appreciated. What I mean is that, by measuring your own metal against the daunting tasks that lay ahead - you are building your inner strength to solidify what it takes to see the journey through, whatever it may be.
Until a person gains epic insight into their own perspective and motivations, any tumbleweed in the wind of change can derail even the most detail plans. We might tell ourselves differently, in reality we have second, third, fourth and any number of attempts to reach our goals and destiny: the only true weapon that defeats willpower is our own lack of sustained initiative. As long as there is a beating heart in your chest, you have the ability and potential to fight on and win, regardless of what your mind bakes up. In nature, birds fly into a headwind or pressurized air to gain lift... in the same way, no matter the storm we find ourselves in: we can only truly fall when we stop flapping our wings. So then, committing to the process with every ounce of one's soul and being, despite outcomes, is the hallmark of a champion. Ascending obstacles breeds a will to resolve; thus whole resolution is symbiotic with ultimate achievement. Plateaus between amateur level performance and professional or near-flawless consistency is transcended through the aforementioned physics pressurization archetype.
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics is famously quoted for sharing this ideology: “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.”
