By Legal Futures Associate SIFA Professional
Are you interested in expanding your knowledge beyond legal issues? We offer solicitors free access to our monthly webinars, where industry experts cover a range of topics on financial services.
Registration is simple, and you can earn a Continued Professional Development record by joining in. See below details and link to register.
Why should you consider registering?
Consider the insights and messaging from your regulator as a compelling reason to actively participate.
A few months ago, the SRA published their annual assessment of ongoing competence, making it clear to individual lawyers and COLPs alike that the focus on maintaining skills and knowledge remains intense. The SRA, facing scrutiny from the Legal Services Board, is committed to upholding the quality of legal services and fostering consumer confidence and trust in the profession—objectives we all share and strive for.
Interestingly the report also identified wider challenges that some solicitors are facing to meet their obligation to maintain confidence – ‘This included some solicitors only focusing their learning and development on maintaining technical legal knowledge.’
The regulator has made it abundantly clear that they are approaching this matter with utmost seriousness. The report outlines various methods they will employ to oversee the profession, particularly focusing on how firms, especially COLPs, are managing training for their teams and ensuring their competence. For individual solicitors, the SRA will be inspecting training records to assess whether they are engaging in learning and development, the methods they are using, and their commitment to regularly evaluating their own L&D needs. Additionally, they will conduct random checks following the renewal of solicitors’ practicing certificates. In essence, both firms and individuals must prioritize this issue and embed ongoing competency into the foundation of their strategic plans.
COLP & COFA Conference 2024 – Repeating the message…
This message was reiterated yet again by Richard Williams, Policy Associate at this year’s SRA COLP & COFA Conference. The same message was provided to the delegates, that really mirrored the one provided in 2023, which does beg the question, are COLP’s getting the message across to their firms about the need to address this issue? Mr Williams spoke about the report and made several statements regarding monitoring of professional development and looking to “significantly strengthen the annual declaration” and “the existing process to see if it is still fit for purpose”?
So, how can we help?
Keep an eye out for our upcoming webinars that are sure to capture your interest, particularly if you’re looking to expand your non-legal knowledge in the financial services sector. The next webinar is:
Company Purchase and Employee Ownership Trust Planning Webinar
Registration
Synopsis
Join us for Royal London’s insightful webinar on Company Purchase and Employee Ownership Trust Planning. This session is designed to provide practical guidance on how to effectively plan for company purchases and protection opportunities for employee ownership trusts.
Learning objectives: By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:
- Bring into clear focus, via a case study, the methods of setting up Shareholder Protection, namely Own Life in Trust and Company Share Buyback.
- Consider the tax benefits that Company Owners can achieve through selling shares to an Employee Ownership Trust.
- Understand the pension and protection planning opportunities following Employee Ownership Trust transactions
Speaker: David Dawson, Corporate Sales Consultant Protection, Royal London
