Tag Results
SRA to consider giving consumers guidelines on how much to pay solicitors
Tuesday, 15 March 2011The Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating whether to provide consumers with guideline price ranges for legal services, it has confirmed. The move follows a call to provide better information to clients about solicitors’ services.
Tags: OFR, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors
Thinking outside the box
Friday, 4 February 2011Not long ago I sat in a roomful of lawyers and watched their faces as someone tried to explain the principles of outcomes-focused regulation. Not surprisingly, quite a few eyes glazed over and I didn’t get the impression that many of them grasped how it differed from the existing sort. I don’t blame them.
Tags: OFR, outcomes-focused regulation
Posted in Blog
SRA to consider compulsory ethics training for all solicitors as it plans major CPD review
Tuesday, 1 February 2011Ethics training could become a compulsory element of solicitors’ continuing professional development as part of a fundamental review to be conducted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Legal Futures has learned. The review – described by the SRA as “overdue” – will look to ensure that CPD “works in the new world of alternative business structures and outcome-focused regulation”.
Tags: ABS, Alternative business structures, continuing professional development, CPD, ethics, OFR, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors
Timetable for outcomes-focused regulation is too tight and too risky, Law Society warns
Sunday, 23 January 2011The timetable for bringing in outcomes-focused regulation is too tight to understand the full consequences, and risks a breakdown in the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s relationship with the profession, the Law Society has warned.
Tags: Law Society, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors
The themes of 2011, part 2
Tuesday, 18 January 2011Last week I highlighted alternative business structures, the Legal Services Board and diversity as three of the key themes I expect to pervade Legal Futures’ coverage of the market in 2011. Here are three more, again in no particular order: the Legal Ombudsman, professional indemnity insurance, and outcomes-focused regulation/the new Solicitors Handbook.
Tags: Legal Ombudsman, outcomes-focused regulation, professional indemnity insurance, professional negligence, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Blog
More firms sign up to SRA relationship management pilot
Wednesday, 12 January 2011Seven law firms have joined the second wave of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) relationship management (RM) pilot. RM may be one of the ways the SRA supervises firms according to its assessment of the risks the firm poses as part of outcomes-focused regulation, which goes live in October.
Tags: Indemnity insurance, OFR, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors
Crash, bang, wallop
Thursday, 9 December 2010We should have seen it coming, really. The last two property crashes and the wave of claims against conveyancers they brought in their wake broke the system for solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance – first the master policy and then the Solicitors Indemnity Fund – and so here we are again contemplating radical reform.
Tags: assigned risks pool, Law Society, outcomes-focused regulation, professional indemnity insurance, Solicitors Indemnity Fund, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Blog
SRA to establish £3m redundancy fund
Thursday, 9 December 2010The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is seeking to establish a £3 million contingency fund to cover the cost of redundancies among its 600 staff, Legal Futures can reveal. Implementation of a new IT system and the introduction of outcomes-focused regulation next year are the reasons why the SRA has requested the Law Society to put the money aside.
Tags: Law Society, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors
Partners working in “silos” pose major danger to law firms’ risk management strategies
Monday, 6 December 2010Lawyers working alone in ‘silos’ present serious potential risks to law firms, but limiting partners’ autonomy can harm your practice’s bottom line, a conference heard last week.
Tags: compliance, Indemnity insurance, outcomes-focused regulation
Posted in Indemnity insurance, News
SRA to launch more law firm supervision pilots as run-up to OFR gains momentum
Friday, 3 December 2010The Solicitors Regulation Authority will start pilots for desk-based supervision and risk-based visits to law firms next month as the run-up to the launch of outcomes-focused regulation steps up. A new policy statement explains that “high intensity” supervision does not mean a firm is necessarily in trouble.
Tags: ABS, Alternative business structures, OFR, outcomes-focused regulation, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in News, Solicitors