Rapson: Moving rapidly towards supervisory approach
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has withdrawn several cases from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) out of concern that it could not establish dishonesty.
The news comes after we reported earlier this week [1] that 12 of the 62 contested cases before the SDT in 2024-25 did not lead to a conviction, by far the highest proportion in recent years.
In her report to last month’s meeting of the SRA board – which was published yesterday – chief executive Sarah Rapson explained that the executive has been undertaking a review of all cases heading to the SDT “to ensure these are properly brought and with the right allegations”.
She went on: “We are having regard to allegations of dishonesty, given the extremely serious nature of such an allegation. This has resulted in our withdrawing several cases, sometimes quite late, or withdrawing allegations of dishonesty and proceeding with other allegations.
“This is the right thing to do to ensure that only appropriate allegations are brought before the tribunal.”
Indeed, we reported [2] on this in action just yesterday, where a former partner at a national law firm was reprimanded for a minor rule breach – the lowest sanction the SDT can impose – after the SRA withdrew more serious allegations, including of dishonesty, a few days before his disciplinary hearing.
Legal Futures has also experienced this, as a complaint we made about a solicitor’s conduct in threatening us with legal action, which was due to be heard by the tribunal in the summer, was called off less a month before, again after the SRA decided that it could not establish dishonesty.
Separately, the papers before the SRA board outlined Ms Rapson’s efforts “to move on rapidly with work to move to a supervisory system of regulation”. This included recruiting up to 20 new supervisory staff.
The aim is to put the focus on prevention and Ms Rapson’s report said that work on the supervision pilot – with the first three month ‘sprint’ completed – was progressing well.
“Many firms are responding positively to our engagement, providing information so that we can better understand the risks and it is pleasing that some are voluntarily making changes to their practices to address concerns we have identified in areas such as referral and marketing arrangements and client money controls and compliance governance.
“In addition to the groups of firms with complex business structures and larger HVCC [high-volume consumer claims] practices that were included in the first sprint, we are now extending to an additional cohort of firms with retail client money holdings, to test the approaches to proactively identifying and addressing risks of holding client money.”
On HVCCs more generally, as well as enforcement action against some, the board was told that engagement “has driven positive behavioural change, with at least five firms strengthening client onboarding processes, improving the quality of merits assessments and introducing more transparent advertising and client communications”.
Ms Rapson’s update on the PM Law Group intervention recorded that, as of 10 September, the SRA had released 14,400 files to clients or their new solicitors, responded to almost 28,000 emails and enquiries, returned £24m to clients so far – £17m from the SRA Compensation Fund and £7m from the client money PM Law was holding.
The regulator has dealt with 650 of more than 1,250 applications to the fund. “We have continued to receive a remarkably high volume of claims and there remains considerable pressure to deal with the claims.
“We have increased resources; developed a ‘fast track’ process and implemented the prioritisation criteria to help us make sure that those with the greatest need are dealt with first.”
The report revealed too that the SRA has 55 live investigations into immigration law firms.
Other papers indicated that the SRA is projected to have a £9.9m deficit for its 2025-26 year – which finishes on Saturday – compared to the £5.5m it had budgeted.
Further, the 2026-27 budget was already under pressure and the board “acknowledged the possibility of additional funds being requested”.
On performance, the SRA aims to assess 80% of reports within two months but the sharp increase in misconduct reports in the last couple of years meant that it dropped to 36% in June 2025. However, the board heard that it had climbed back to 70% a year later.
The time taken to process applications from new firms and authorise them to practise remains below target for the reporting period too.
“This reflects ongoing capacity challenges as the team continues to rebuild expertise following the loss of a significant number of experienced colleagues.” But a recovery plan meant the SRA expected to hit the target by December.