Ten years ago, very few large law firms needed external legal advice on dealing with their regulator. This was because the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) would normally only take action against an individual within a firm rather than the firm itself. Since then, the SRA has increasingly used its powers to regulate entities and shown a much greater interest in how law firms are run. With that has come the era of big fines for firms that have breached the SRA’s Handbook.
While all large law firms will have experts in-house that deal with regulatory and risk issues, they are unlikely to have had extensive experience of the SRA’s investigation and enforcement procedures. In addition, external advisers can act as a sounding board on difficult issues, such as if, how and when to report a matter to the SRA.
