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Amid all the bad news assailing solicitors, various third parties have grasped a fundamental truth about them – they are good at the law but many of them are not really interested in business. This is where the good news starts. There are now several conglomerates operating in the legal services market offering solicitors the business acumen, back office, bulk purchasing, mentoring and management training that they need.

It is no great secret that the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) sees its role in enforcing the government’s ban on referral fees in personal injury as a hospital pass. It would much rather that paying or receiving a referral fee be made a criminal offence and taken out of its hands. After all, the SRA (in its previous guise as part of the Law Society) has been down this road before and it wasn’t a happy experience.

Dissatisfaction with the response of the Solicitors Regulation Authority to allegations of misconduct by solicitors is the most common source of complaints against the authority, with the introduction of risk-based regulation making the situation worse, its independent reviewer has found.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has rejected calls for it to have greater powers to fine ABSs than traditional law firms. It has also dismissed suggestions by the Law Society that it should not have substantial fining powers at all.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a bid to regulate non-lawyer immigration advisers. However, at the same time the body that oversees them – the Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner – is seeking to take over the regulation of specialist lawyers.