Sobel: SRA has faced challenges
The government needs to “look again” at the enforcement powers of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to ensure it can deal with “lawyers who let down the reputation of the profession”, justice minister Sarah Sackman said this week.
She also said she was confident that a “carefully balanced and proportionate approach that the government can support” on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) could be agreed with the promoters of private members’ bills in both houses of Parliament.
A debate on SLAPPs on Tuesday, secured by Labour MP Alex Sobel, was framed around a motion that noted the SRA’s view that the main way to address the problem of SLAPPs was through “a robust legislative solution that gives the courts more powers”.
The motion added that “SRA regulation will inevitably be severely limited absent a new law” and stressed the need for “simple, comprehensive anti-SLAPP provisions that filter out abusive lawsuits swiftly and fairly”.
In his address, Mr Sobel noted how “the limit of the regulatory framework has been brought into sharp focus” in recent months.
He explained: “The Solicitors Regulation Authority has faced challenges in progressing SLAPP complaints, particularly those that have reached the tribunal stage, and recent Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal judgments have failed to address the fundamental issue of SLAPPs as an abusive tactic.
“Despite over 70 cases being opened since 2022, only three have so far progressed to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
“Moreover, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has not publicly released any data regarding the state of its SLAPP-related investigations since 2024. While new legislation is urgently required, it must be accompanied by strong regulatory guidance and enforcement action.”
Labour MP Phil Brickell said he was “encouraged by noises coming out of the SRA since the regulator’s change in leadership, but as [cases highlighted by other MPs showed], it strikes me that the regulatory framework as it currently stands is not up to the job.
“That is why a universal anti-SLAPP law is needed to ensure that those who speak out in the public interest are protected.”
He noted last December’s SDT decision to summarily dismiss an allegation that Carter-Ruck partner Claire Gill made an improper threat against an investor in cryptocurrency OneCoin, who had tried to warn others that it was a scam.
The SDT found that she acted on explicit client instructions and had no reason at that stage to disbelieve them.
Mr Brickell said: “There are serious questions to be asked about the tribunal’s approach in setting such a high bar of actual knowledge of wrongdoing – effectively requiring evidence of complicity – before professional ethics really kick in.
“My concern is that the high bar makes it conveniently easy for lawyers to simply avoid asking questions that they do not want to know the answers to.
“If lawyers are allowed to blindly and ignorantly pursue their clients’ interests – even when that involves silencing the police and ‘in furtherance of fraud’, to use the tribunal’s wording before the case was thrown out – then we will never stop SLAPPs.”
In her response to the debate, Ms Sackman said maintaining public confidence required recognising not just the legal profession’s strengths, but also “those cases where legal processes are being misused and abused by legal professionals”.
She continued: “That is why I welcome the calls for further action and robustness from our independent regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
“We need to look again at the SRA’s enforcement powers and whether it has the tools it needs to charge fines and place disciplinary sanctions on those lawyers who let down the reputation of the profession.”
Ms Sackman said she was “working closely” with Conservative MP Sir John Whittingdale and Conservative peer Baroness Stowell, who in June introduced anti-SLAPP private members’ bills in the Commons and Lords respectively.
There was “much common ground”, she said. “We see that there can be a good way forward that gets the results that we need on the statute book, and that strikes a coherent balance between the right to access the courts – that must be maintained, so that people can protect their reputation and their right to privacy – and freedom of expression for journalists and individuals.”
Ms Sackman said the definition of SLAPPs in the Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, the first time they had been defined in statute, confined them “narrowly” to economic crime.
“As we have heard, SLAPPs are used in a far wider context. While it is a vital stepping stone, it is just that.
“As we have heard tonight, there is agreement that we need to go wider, because many alleged SLAPPs fall outside the current framework, including cases involving sexual abuse allegations, medical negligence concerns, academic research and consumer reviews.
“Such things are in the public interest, so we need a wider definition of SLAPPs that goes beyond economic crime and adopts an objective test of what is reasonable behaviour in the conduct of litigation.”
Ms Sackman said the test for SLAPPs needed to be simplified, so any early dismissal mechanism could be deployed in a more “refined and effective” way.
“I and the government find an objective test attractive. A better definition of harassment, alarm or distress is needed, and we will look to work on that with those who bring forward the private members’ bills.”
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