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The total number of firms and individuals in trouble with the Solicitors Regulation Authority over nominations for compliance officers has risen by a third in the past month to nearly 800, it has emerged.

More than two months since law firms were meant to have their compliance officers in place, around 300 firms still do not have them, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed. This is a mix of firms that have not had their nominations approved and those that have still not nominated at all.

IRIS Legal is delighted to announce the signing of its first partnership agreement of 2013 with COLP/COFA software provider Riliance Software Ltd. In the agreement, and in response to the increasingly complex regulatory needs of UK law firms, IRIS Legal has added Riliance’s market leading COLP/COFA online service to its existing product portfolio to provide a unique service offering to the UK legal market.

Not all alternative business structure applicants have understood what is required of them, which in part explains delays in approving some licences, the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said in a robust defence of the regulator’s performance that also dealt with compliance officer approvals.

An outcomes-focused, risk-based approach to regulating the activities of most lawyers who deliver legal services in a post-Legal Services Act landscape is a fact of life. Yet you still don’t have to go far to find solicitors who either fail to grasp the concept or hanker after the old, detailed rules-based system. The degree of non-acceptance is profound, more than a year after outcomes-focused regulation came in – in October 2011. So persistent is it that the SRA may be relying on the insertion of compliance officers for legal practice and financial administration (COLPs and COFAs) into the fabric of every firm to help change attitudes.