Dispute Resolution SQE1 questions
Dispute Resolution follows a civil claim under the Civil Procedure Rules from limitation and pre-action conduct to trial, costs, appeals and enforcement. It had FLK1's lowest mean scaled score in the SRA's 2023/24 report, 278 against a pass mark of 300.
Updated 25 September 2026 · Checked against SRA sources listed below
SQE1 at a glance
- questions in each FLK
- 170
- per question on average
- 1.8 min
- out of 500 to pass each FLK
- 300
- passed SQE1 in January 2026
- 53%
Dispute resolution · 8 questions, adaptive order
1 of 8
Question 1 · Responding to a claim, default judgment and statements of case · FLK1
A company issued a claim form against a man for the price of goods it had sold him. The claim form stated that particulars of claim would follow. It was deemed served on the man on Tuesday 7 September, and the particulars of claim were deemed served on him on Thursday 16 September.
The man disputes the claim and wants to defend it.
By when must the man file an acknowledgment of service or a defence to avoid the risk of default judgment?
Question 2 · Case management, tracks and sanctions · FLK1
A man is suing a building company for £18,000, alleging that it built his garage badly. The claim has been allocated to the fast track, and the trial is listed for one day. The man is acting in person, and the company is represented by counsel.
At the trial, the man struggles to cross-examine the company's site manager and cannot identify the points he needs to put to her. The judge asks the man which parts of her evidence he disputes, and then puts several questions to the site manager.
The company's counsel objects that the judge is helping the man and is not treating the parties equally.
Which of the following best explains whether the judge may put questions to the site manager?
Question 3 · Evidence, disclosure and privilege · FLK1
A homeowner is suing a builder in the County Court for £85,000, alleging that the foundations of an extension were defective. The claim is on the multi-track. At the case management conference, the court directed that witness statements of fact be limited to the specification agreed for the work, the work actually done and the payments made.
The homeowner wants to serve statements from five neighbours. They say that the builder was rude to them, often blocked their driveways during the work and has a poor reputation locally. Each neighbour is willing to attend the trial.
Which of the following best describes the likely position on the neighbours' statements?
Question 4 · Trial, costs, appeals and enforcement · FLK1
A claim for £180,000 is proceeding in the County Court on the multi-track. At the case management conference, the court fixed a trial period beginning on 1 March and directed the parties to file pre-trial checklists by 11 January.
In December, the claimant's expert said that she would be abroad throughout March. The defendant's solicitor then wrote to the claimant's solicitor:
"We agree that the trial should take place in May instead, and that the pre-trial checklists should be filed in March."
Can the parties postpone the trial and the filing of the pre-trial checklists by their agreement?
Question 5 · Dispute resolution options and pre-action considerations · FLK1
A written contract for building works was executed as a deed by both the client and the builder on 10 March 2014. The builder's breach of the contract, by failing to complete the works to the standard required, occurred on 1 June 2014. The client did not discover any problem with the works until years later and is now considering suing the builder for breach of contract.
By when must the client bring the claim, assuming no other rule extends or postpones the limitation period?
Question 6 · Evidence, disclosure and privilege · FLK1
In a breach of contract claim on the multi-track, a defendant company has millions of emails on its servers. Standard disclosure has been ordered. The defendant's solicitor identifies that a particular email folder, used by only two employees involved in the disputed transaction, is small, cheap to search electronically and highly likely to contain documents relevant to the issues in dispute. A separate, much larger archive of emails from an unrelated department, unconnected to the transaction, would be very expensive to search and is most unlikely to contain anything relevant.
Which of these searches is the defendant required to make as part of a reasonable search for standard disclosure?
Question 7 · Case management, tracks and sanctions · FLK1
A claim for £250,000 has been allocated to the multi-track. It involves several disputed factual issues and competing expert evidence on quantum. The court is considering how best to manage the case towards trial.
What will the court usually do to manage a multi-track case such as this?
Question 8 · Case management, tracks and sanctions · FLK1
A claimant brings a claim for £120,000 arising from an alleged breach of a commercial supply contract. The dispute involves detailed expert evidence on industry practice, disclosure of a large volume of correspondence, and a trial that is expected to last four days.
Which track is the normal track for this claim?
SQE1 at a glance
- questions in each FLK
- 170
- per question on average
- 1.8 min
- out of 500 to pass each FLK
- 300
- passed SQE1 in January 2026
- 53%
What Dispute Resolution covers in SQE1
The SRA's specification for assessments from 1 September 2026 follows a civil claim from start to finish:
- the options for resolving a dispute: arbitration, mediation and litigation;
- limitation in contract and tort, pre-action conduct and the protocols, parties and causes of action, applicable law, and the Welsh language;
- where to start: the High Court or the county court, and the specialist courts;
- issuing and serving proceedings, in and out of the jurisdiction, and adding or substituting parties;
- responding to a claim: admissions, acknowledgment of service, defence and counterclaim, disputing jurisdiction, default judgment, discontinuance;
- statements of case, requests for further information and amendments;
- interim applications: summary judgment, interim payments and interim injunctions;
- case management: the overriding objective, track allocation, directions, sanctions and relief;
- evidence, disclosure, privilege and without prejudice communications;
- trial, costs (including budgeting, Part 36 and security for costs), appeals and the enforcement of money judgments.
For 2026 the SRA replaced "oral examination" in the enforcement section with obtaining information from a judgment debtor, the term the Civil Procedure Rules use.
Where it sits in FLK1
Dispute Resolution is examined in FLK1, in session 1 from January 2027, with Business Law and Practice and Legal Services. Each session has 85 questions, grouped by subject and randomised within the session. In the SRA's 2019 blueprint Dispute Resolution makes up 14 to 20 percent of FLK1.
Contract and tort law often supply the facts of a procedural question, and ethics arises through the duty not to mislead the court, full and frank disclosure on an application made without notice, and dealings with witnesses. The Civil Procedure Rules are amended several times a year, and the version examined in January 2027 is the one in force on 11 September 2026.
Key time limits
| Step | Time limit | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Serving a claim form within the jurisdiction | The step required for service taken before midnight on the calendar day four months after issue | CPR 7.5 |
| Particulars of claim served separately | Within 14 days of service of the claim form, and no later than the last day for serving it | CPR 7.4 |
| Acknowledgment of service | 14 days after service of the particulars of claim | CPR 10.3 |
| Defence | 14 days after service of the particulars, or 28 days if an acknowledgment of service is filed | CPR 15.4 |
| Extending time for a defence by agreement | Up to 28 days more, with the court told in writing | CPR 15.5 |
| Application notice, general rule | Served at least 3 clear days before the hearing | CPR 23.7 |
| Summary judgment hearing | At least 14 days' notice to the respondent | CPR 24.4 |
| Paying a money judgment | Within 14 days, unless the court orders otherwise | CPR 40.11 |
| Appellant's notice | Within 21 days of the decision, unless the lower court directs otherwise | CPR 52.12 |
Where candidates go wrong
In the SRA's annual report for 2023/24, Dispute Resolution had a mean scaled score of 278, the lowest in FLK1. The traps in our question bank are mostly about counting and about treating a rule as automatic.
- Counting from the wrong event. The 28 days for a defence run from service of the particulars of claim, not from the acknowledgment of service. The four months for a claim form turn on the step taken to serve it, not on when the defendant receives it.
- Tracks by value alone. A claim above the small claims limit generally goes to the fast track if it is worth up to £25,000 and the trial will last a day or less. It does not move to the intermediate track because of its value. Value is the starting point, but the court may allocate a claim to a higher track after weighing the factors in CPR 26.13, including the likely complexity of the facts, law or evidence.
- Default judgment as automatic. A defendant who misses the deadline but has a pending application to strike out or for summary judgment cannot have default judgment entered against them while it is outstanding.
- Mixing the bases of costs. On the standard basis doubt is resolved in favour of the paying party and costs must be proportionate. On the indemnity basis doubt goes to the receiving party and proportionality does not apply.
How to revise Dispute Resolution
Draw the life of a claim as one timeline, from the letter before claim to enforcement, and put every time limit on it with the event it runs from.
Learn the tests for each interim application as a short checklist: for summary judgment, no real prospect of success and no other compelling reason for a trial; for an interim injunction, a serious question to be tried, then whether damages would be adequate and where the balance of convenience lies. Learn limitation with the Contract and Tort subjects, since the claims they describe are the ones being timed.
Once the subject is learned, practise in mixed session 1 sets, since the paper moves between Dispute Resolution, BLP and Legal Services. The guide on how to pass SQE1 covers when to make that switch.
Questions candidates ask
Rarely. The specification expects a rule's name to be known where it is the usual term for the procedure, such as CPR Part 36. Otherwise candidates need not cite rules, but the time limits and tests inside them must be known exactly.
Yes. The specification refers to case management directions on the fast, intermediate and multi-tracks. The intermediate track generally takes claims over £25,000 and up to £100,000 where the trial will last no more than three days.
Yes, as a matter of choice. The specification asks candidates to identify the characteristics of arbitration, mediation and litigation that make each an appropriate way to resolve a particular dispute.
The specification covers calculating limitation periods for claims in contract and tort. The core periods are six years for a simple contract and for most torts, twelve years for a contract made by deed, and three years for personal injury, with date of knowledge rules for injury and latent damage.
Sources
- SRA: SQE1 Assessment Specification (assessments from 1 September 2026)Checked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE changes (September 2026)Checked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE1 Functioning Legal Knowledge assessment specification (August 2019), Annex 4 blueprintChecked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE Annual Report 2023/24Checked 23 September 2026
SQE1 Ready is independent of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Rules, dates and fees can change: the SRA is the authority, and this page is checked against it.
Civil procedure is one subject of thirteen
Dispute Resolution sits in FLK1 session 1 with Business Law and Practice and Legal Services, and the two practice subjects there had the lowest FLK1 scores in 2023/24. The free diagnostic gives a first read on all three, and on every other subject, in 13 questions and about 15 minutes.
13 questions · about 15 minutes · free, no card details