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Two out and two in once again – SRA maintains City bias on its board

Rowlands: wealth of insight, experience and expertise [1]

Rowlands: wealth of insight, experience and expertise

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has again maintained the City bias on its board with its latest batch of appointments.

In all, five new members will take their seats around the table from January, of which two are solicitors: Geoff Nicholls, a senior partner at City firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and City-trained Barry Matthews, director of legal affairs and third party sales at broadcaster ITV.

They replace Norton Rose partner Martin Coleman and Dentons consultant Cindy Leslie.

This time last year [2] two outgoing City-based board members were replaced by two more as well.

Of the three other solicitor board members, one is also a City lawyer – Moni Mannings, a finance partner at Olswang – and the remaining two are Chris Randall, chief executive of 30-partner multi-office Sussex firm Mayo Wynne Baxter, and former Law Society president Paul Marsh, a conveyancer who is a consultant with 15-partner Downs Solicitors in Surrey.

Mr Matthews founded the Legal Social Mobility Partnership in 2014, which aims to promote diversity in the legal profession.

The board has a lay majority and the three new lay members are:

The trio replace Graham Chisnall, Bill Galvin and Peter Phippen.

SRA chair Enid Rowlands said: “I’m delighted to announce that we have five such distinguished appointees joining our board in the New Year. They will bring a wealth of insight, experience and expertise and I am looking forward to working with them to protect the public and set the standards for solicitors, as we reform our regulatory model.”

Six of the 15 members of the SRA board are women.