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Posted by Barbara Hamilton-Bruce, director of operations at Accident Advice Helpline: I regularly sit down with people from teams across the business to talk about the performance of law firms on our panel and firms that have made enquiries about membership. One of the agenda subjects is ‘quality’. It’s a hard thing to define but generally we are asking ourselves ‘does what we have learnt since the last meeting that may change our view of any of our panel firms, past or present?’. We talk about many things but pay a lot of attention to customer feedback, good and bad.

There is broad support for an outcomes-focused approach to implementing the ban on referral fees in personal injury cases, according to early indications from the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s consultation on the issue.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set to recommend dropping the controversial ban on practitioners referring clients to tied financial advisers. Solicitors would instead have to ensure that the client is involved in the decision-making process that goes into any referral.

The third edition of the SRA Handbook in just seven months has gone live after being approved by the Legal Services Board. A fourth edition in less than a year since the Handbook went live on 6 October 2011 should be necessary in June.

The new caring, sharing Solicitors Regulation Authority issued a caring, sharing press release shortly before Christmas. Entitled “Take care with vulnerable clients, SRA urges”, it admonished solicitors “to ensure they pay close attention to clients’ needs from the outset to make sure they deliver a proper standard of service”. It is one of the most patronising things I have seen from the SRA.