ABOUT THE PAUL KENT LEGAL TRAINING OLQE 2025 COURSE
INTRODUCTION
Paul Kent Legal Training (‘PKLT’) provides tuition in all Heads of the Overseas Lawyers Qualification Examination (‘OLQE’), an annual examination administered by the Law Society of Hong Kong (‘LSHK’).
The examination comprises 6 ‘Heads’ as follows:
Head I (Conveyancing);
Head II (Civil and Criminal Procedure);
Head III (Commercial and Company Law);
Head IV (Accounts and Professional Conduct);
Head V (Principles of Common Law) *
Head VI (Hong Kong Constitutional Law).
[ * Please note that candidates admitted in a common law jurisdiction are not required to take Head V. Candidates admitted in a non-common law jurisdiction who are interested in tuition for Head V should send an email to psk@pskent.com for further information].
CORE RESOURCES
If you register for The Paul Kent Legal Training OLQE 2024 Course you will:
(1) Receive:
(a) Background Papers (‘BPs’) setting out the laws and authorities on the subjects for which you have registered, relevant cases and legislation, and Q&As to show you how to APPLY the law to answer the kinds of questions you get in the examination.
(b) Casebooks setting out summaries of relevant judicial decisions.
(c) A mock examination in each subject.
(d) Feedback on the mock exam, including comments on individual submissions to the mock exams.
(e) Updates for revision.
(2) Receive 1 to 1 tuition via our unique unlimited email service which enables you to contact Paul Kent directly with questions up to the eve of the examinations. Paul will use his best endeavours to respond within 24 hours of receiving your email.
(3) Have the right to join a total of 12 hours of live online Revision classes in each subject. Revision sessions will commence on Monday 18 August 2025 and end on Friday 10 October. Each revision session will last for 1.5 hours, and there will be 1 session on each evening from Monday to Friday. Additional classes (if necessary) will be scheduled on a Saturday morning during the revision period.
REVISION TIMETABLE (subject to change as circumstances demand, such as public holidays)
Head I – Mondays from 18 August 2025 to Monday 6 October 2025
Head IV – Tuesdays from 19 August 2025 to 7 October 2025
Head II – Wednesdays from 20 August 2025 to 8 October 2025
Head VI – Thursdays from 21 August 2025 to 9 October 2025
Head III – Fridays from 21 August 2025 to 10 October 2025
All classes will commence at 7.00 pm Hong Kong time and end at 8.30 pm.
The Revision sessions focus on APPLICATION of the laws you have learned in studying the BPs. This is the key skill in examinations in the common law world. The revision sessions will include answers to a selection of past examination papers, and possible questions based upon recent developments.
Audio recordings will be made of all the revision sessions.
MOCK EXAMINATION FEEDBACK SESSION
(To be arranged)
START READING EARLY
We strongly advise candidates for the OLQE to start reading as soon as possible. The syllabuses are large, and the exams are tough. Candidates must be very familiar with Hong Kong Law to pass any subject in the OLQE.
Furthermore, candidates may not find out if they are eligible to sit the OLQE until shortly before the date of the first examination. It is not advisable to wait until then before you start studying.
REFUND POLICY
If you pay the fee for The Paul Kent Legal Training Couse 2025 and start studying before the Law Society of Hong Kong (‘LSHK’) notifies you of their decision on your application, you will NOT be eligible for a full refund of the fee if the LSHK rejects your application.
Furthermore, you will NOT be eligible for a full refund of the fee paid to Paul Kent Legal Training if the LSHK declares that you are eligible to sit the exam but you decide not to sit the exam or you decide to postpone sitting it until the following year. However, in such a case as this, Paul Kent Legal Training reserves the right to decide to hold over the fee until the following year, provided that you give us adequate reasons for not taking the exam in 2025.
If the Law Society decides that you are exempt from sitting Head III or Head IV of the examination, you will be eligible for a refund of the fee paid to Paul Kent Legal Training for tuition in that particular subject or subjects.
Candidates admitted in a common law jurisdiction are “exempt from sitting Head II (Civil and Criminal Procedure) under rule 4(1) of the Overseas Lawyers (Qualification for Admission) Rules”. It follows that you will NOT be eligible for a refund if the LSHK decides you must take Head II.
For the avoidance of doubt, the refund policy does not apply to Head V (the oral examination for non-common lawyers). This is because no fee is payable for Head V unless, and until, the LSHK confirms that a candidate is eligible to sit the Head V exam.
FURTHER INFORMATION
If you need any further information to decide whether to register for The Paul Kent Legal Training OLQE 2025 Course, please do not hesitate to contact us by sending an email to psk@pskent.com
* Please note that there is a separate Registration Form for Head V: Principles of Common Law. Candidates admitted in a common law jurisdiction do not have to take Head V.
Referrals
I grow my business by referral. Should you know any person who may be interested in developing a legal training course, or in studying law with Paul Kent Legal Training, please feel free to introduce them. Many thanks.
ADVICE ON APPLYING TO SIT THE OLQE
Candidates will not be able to apply to sit the exam until after the Law Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) issues the Information package for the 2025 Exam. This is likely to be at the end of January 2025. Applications may be submitted in early February 2025. There will a deadline which is usually around March 15. This is a very short period. If you plan to apply to sit the exam, you should start getting the required documents together NOW.
The Information Package issued by the LSHK contains a very clear warning to candidates to comply precisely with the stated requirements. Not surprisingly, therefore, applications may be rejected for failure to do do so, particularly if candidates fail to provide supporting documents on time, or otherwise fail to follow exactly the procedures specified in the Information Package. Candidates must take great care and time in preparing their application because a rejection means loss of the application fee and a year’s delay in sitting the exam.
PAUL KENT LEGAL TRAINING’S PROBLEM-SOLVING’ APPROACH TO LEARNING
Paul Kent’s teaching is aimed at showing students/lawyers how to solve the kinds of problems that law examiners typically set, and which may arise in practice. He has been using this approach for over 50 years.
The approach is implemented by examining and practising the following key skills:
• analysing the narratives that are the basis of every problem,
• identifying the general issue(s) arising from those narratives,
• analysing the law,
• identifying specific legal issues generated by applying that law to the narratives,
• recognising alternative possible outcomes to the issues; and
• writing appropriate written responses to the questions set.
This means that, while it is essential to provide a good set of notes setting out key legal principles and authorities, that is not enough. In the PKLT problem solving approach, knowledge of the law is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Exam practice
Exam Practice is a fundamental feature of PKLT’s problem-solving approach to legal training. For hundreds of years law teachers have presented problems to help students learn the law and solve legal problems. Carefully prepared expository lectures are useful but they can never be enough because law exams test more than knowledge. It is only by working on the kinds of problems that arise, both in practice and in law school, that candidates can acquire a deep understanding of the subjects and can learn how to apply the law in solving those problems.
This is precisely the approach PKLT adopts. Candidates work on many different kinds of problems and in the process practise the key legal skills outlined above. In this way, they are already looking for key issues, and relating the core law long before they enter the exam hall.
1 to 1 tuition
Valuable as group learning is, regular 1 to 1 contact with a tutor is rated very highly by students, especially since people respond in different ways to the challenges of legal study.
Paul Kent Legal Training provides 1 to 1 tuition by offering unlimited email contact with Paul Kent. Everyone who enrols on a course with PKLT can contact Paul directly by email at any time, and Paul aims to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours. Candidates who have taken advantage of this resource from the moment they started studying have done very well in the exams.
In addition, live online sessions may be arranged with individual students where time permits.
REGISTRATION
Please contact us for the Registration Form for the 2025 Course. Completed registration forms should be signed and sent by email to psk@pskent.com.
FEES
Please see the Registration Form for information on fees.
Substantial discounts are offered to candidates who register with Paul Kent Legal Training for more than 1 subject, or for 2 or more persons who register for the Paul Kent Legal Training OLQE 2025 Course (i.e. “group discounts”).
FURTHER INFORMATION
If you need any further information to decide whether to register for The Paul Kent Legal Training OLQE 2025 Course, please do not hesitate to contact us by sending an email to Paul Kent at psk@pskent.com
If you have not already done so, please visit our website at www.pskent.com and read the testimonials.
Paul Kent
For and on behalf of Paul Kent Legal Training