Regulation & Compliance Conference 2026

Sarah Rapson, Chief Executive, Solicitors Regulation Authority

Sarah has 20 years’ experience in regulation and government. Before joining the SRA, Sarah was executive director-supervision at the Financial Reporting Council, and was previously director-authorisations at the Financial Conduct Authority. Prior to that, she had been a board member at the Home Office, the first director-general of UK Visas and Immigration, registrar-general for England and Wales and chief executive of HM Passport Office.

Her early career was in retail financial services at American Express, Barclays and Woolwich. In a non-executive capacity, Sarah was senior independent director of the North Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust and non-executive director of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Sarah holds an MBA from London Business School.

Colette Best, Director of Anti-Money Laundering, Kingsley Napley

Colette specialises in the provision of anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime advice to regulated professionals and entities. Colette undertakes AML audits for law firms, as well as advising them on complying with the regulations and responding to regulatory investigations.

Before joining Kingsley Napley in 2024, Colette was a senior director at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Having joined the policy team in 2015, she became the SRA’s first director of AML in 2019. She created the SRA’s AML supervision function and was interviewed by FATF on behalf of the legal profession during their 2018 inspection of the UK.

Colette is a former chair of the Legal Sector Affinity Group, the main guidance-setting group for UK legal services and is a former chair of the AML Supervisors Forum, the government’s main forum for AML discussion. Her AML experience dates back to 2006, when she led on the implementation of the third money laundering directive in the property services sector.

Alex Roy, Principal Consultant, Passmore & Oliver Partners

Alex Roy recently joined Passmore & Oliver Partners, the specialist legal and financial services regulatory strategy consultancy, to lead its financial services regulation practice. Prior to this he spent four years at EY where he was a director leading their regulatory insights practice, advising financial services firms on strategy and policy.

Alex brings nearly a decade of experience at the Financial Conduct Authority, where he held a series of senior policy roles, including head of policy for consumer investments and savings policy and head of strategy. Earlier in his career, he spent over four years at the Legal Services Board, first as research manager and then as head of development and research, giving him a rare vantage point across both the legal services and financial services regulatory regimes. He began his regulatory career at the Association of British Insurers, working on distribution reform.

Julia Salasky, CEO & Founder, Legl

Julia Salasky is a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Legl, a platform used by more than 600 UK law firms – including 50 of the top 200 – to modernise and manage complex operational workflows across AML compliance, client onboarding and payments.

Before Legl, Julia founded CrowdJustice, an award-winning platform that transformed access to the legal system by enabling people to crowdfund legal cases. She began her career as a lawyer at Linklaters and later worked as a lawyer at the United Nations.
Julia’s work has earned widespread recognition, including the Financial Times Legal Innovator of the Year, Legal Week’s Outstanding Legal Innovator of the Year, CityAM’s digital innovators power list, and a place on The Lawyer’s Hot 100.

Paul Bennett, Partner, Bennett Briegal

Paul solves problems for law firms and professional practices. He is a solicitor, mediator and arbitrator who advises law firms on SRA regulatory matters, mergers and partnership law at the specialist law firm to other law firms, Bennett Briegal.

With a masters focused on legal ethics, and a professional practice built around regulation, Paul has developed specialist knowledge in this field over decades. Paul’s current ethics work includes AI and regulation. Philosophy could be described as his obsession.

Paul has delivered training to thousands of solicitors on management, people, compliance and regulation issues. He has written three books on legal regulation management and the business of law.

Clare Murray, Founder & Managing Partner, CM Murray

CM Murray is a leading boutique specialising in partnership, employment law, regulation and professional discipline. It is ranked Tier 1 and Band 1 by Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners respectively for both partnership law and employment (senior executives). The firm is described in Legal 500 as “one of the legal world’s strongest offerings in this area.”

Clare acts for US and UK professional services firms (particularly in the legal sector), and for equity partners in professional services and investment management firms. She has particular expertise in the strategic handling of partner investigations, partner conduct and performance issues, partner exits, team moves and restrictive covenants, as well as partner discrimination and whistleblowing complaints and litigation.

Clare is also regarded as a market leader in providing strategic advice to senior executives, founders, US and multi-national companies with UK operations, and US and UK law firms, on their employment law issues. CM Murray founded the International Forum of Senior Executive Advisers (IFSEA), a multi-disciplinary forum chaired by Clare that brings together leading advisers to executives, boards and founders, from around the world.

Clare is personally ranked as a ‘Hall of Fame’ lawyer by Legal 500 for partnership law and employment (senior executives), and as an ‘Eminent Practitioner’ by Chambers and Partners for partnership (contentious and non-contentious) and employment (senior executive) matters.

Philippa Littlechild, Head of Enterprise Risk and Operational Resilience, Birketts

Philippa  leads Birketts’ enterprise risk, operational resilience and data protection functions. Working alongside the head of business data, she also helps lead the firm’s data governance programme, supporting the effective management, protection and use of data across the business.

Philippa is responsible for Birketts’ accredited management systems, including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 22301 and ISO 27001. She joined the risk team in 2021 after spending 10 years as a solicitor in Birketts’ regulatory and corporate defence team, specialising in crime and regulatory law. Her combined legal, risk and governance expertise provides a practical perspective on managing regulatory, operational and information-related risks.

Jonathan Freedman, Director of Technology & Security, Howard Kennedy

Jonathan has over 20 years’ experience in information technology, enterprise architecture and cybersecurity within the professional services sector. At Howard Kennedy, he leads the firm’s technical architecture and cybersecurity functions, overseeing the development and implementation of cybersecurity strategies and technology platform architectures.

Jonathan works closely with business units across the firm to align security measures with organisational goals, ensuring that security operates as a fundamental component of the firm’s success. He has deep technical expertise spanning network infrastructure, virtualisation and cloud-based applications, with a particular focus on the application of machine learning technologies, including Azure AI services and large language models.

Debbie Everett, Founder & Managing Director, eg.law

Debbie is a qualified CILEx conveyancing practitioner, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and licensed conveyancer. After qualifying and working for London law firms for several years, Debbie founded eg.law in 2017 in Norwich, where she is currently the hands-on managing director, COLP and COFA.

With more than 25 years’ experience in day-to-day and complex transactions, Debbie runs eg.law in line with her own core values to provide an ethics and professionalism-led service. These values are shared amongst management and staff which has led to the firm gaining an excellent reputation and being the ‘go-to’ firm locally.

Debbie has a keen interest in maintaining knowledge within the conveyancing world and helping clients understand the process. As COLP and COFA she is also interested in the regulations that shape the way business is conducted.

Bryan Ranasinghe, Finance Partner, Board Member & COFA, Judge & Priestley

Bryan is responsible for the financial management, regulatory compliance, risk oversight and governance framework at Judge & Priestley, working closely with fellow board members and partners to support the firm’s strategic and commercial objectives.

He has extensive experience in legal finance, compliance and operational management, with a particular focus on financial controls, SRA Accounts Rules compliance, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory engagement and business transformation within the legal sector. He has played a key role in supporting the firm’s growth strategy, integrating acquired practices and strengthening governance arrangements, while maintaining a strong emphasis on client protection and financial integrity.

As both a board member and COFA, Bryan has a practical understanding of the challenge of balancing regulatory obligations with the commercial realities of running a modern law firm. He works closely with legal and operational teams to embed compliance into day-to-day decision-making and is a strong advocate of a culture where good governance enables, rather than inhibits, sustainable growth.

Linda Mulcahy, Statutory Professor of Socio-Legal Studies, Centre for Socio-legal Studies, Oxford University

Linda trained as both a lawyer and sociologist. She has over 30 years’ experience of undertaking empirical work on access to justice issues. She is currently funded by the Nuffield Foundation to explore a series of additional funding models for free legal advice, including the IOLTA system.

Andrew Allen, Partner, PKF Francis Clark

Andrew leads the firm’s specialist national legal sector team and regularly works with over 200 law firms across the UK, focusing primarily on law businesses within the UK top 200.

Having advised firms for 30 years, Andrew has developed a national reputation for his practical and specialist advice to the legal sector, ranging from strategy, profit improvement, tax planning and business structuring, as well as compliance in relation to audit and accounting matters.

Andrew is the current vice chair of the Law Society Leadership and Management Section and past chair of the ICAEW Solicitors’ Special Interest Group. He is the author of various financial benchmarking reports for groups of law firms across the UK and co-author of the Law Society’s Solicitors and the Accounts Rules, published in 2021.

Victoria Jordan, AML & SRA Accounts Rules Partner, JMW Solicitors

Victoria advises JMW Solicitors on anti-money laundering compliance, client money and wider regulatory financial crime risks. She is also the firm’s MLRO and MLCO.

Before moving into private practice compliance, Victoria worked as a forensic investigation officer at the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This experience has given her a practical understanding of regulation from both sides: how regulatory expectations are formed and the challenges firms face when putting them into practice.

Victoria’s approach to compliance is straightforward. Controls need to be robust, but they also need to work in the real world. She is particularly interested in how digital solutions can help firms improve the quality and consistency of their AML and SRA Accounts Rules processes, make better use of data and reduce unnecessary manual work. She is equally conscious that technology cannot replace professional judgement or a proper understanding of the underlying risks.

Simon Williams, Senior Ombudsman, Legal Ombudsman

Simon started at the Law Society in 2005, in what was then the consumer complaints service. In the following 21 years, he has seen the good, the bad and everything between, across the spectrum of legal services. He’s been at the Legal Ombudsman since 2011 and has been a senior ombudsman since 2013.

Whilst by his professional nature a generalist, Simon has a particular passion for good cost information. As well as writing articles for LeO and elsewhere, Simon edits the LeO publication, An Ombudsman’s View of Good Costs Service. Alongside this, he has played a key role in delivering LeO’s learning and insight programme, helping to shape resources and initiatives that support improved complaint handling across the legal sector. His recent time has largely been dedicated to LeO’s model complaints resolution procedure, which launched this summer.

Marc Rowson, Partner, Lockton

Marc is a partner at specialist insurance broker Lockton and is responsible for Lockton’s offering to the legal profession. During his 17 years at Lockton, Marc has worked extensively within the professional indemnity space with a core focus on SRA regulated firms in England & Wales.

Marc oversees relationships with the key insurers to the profession and also has significant experience in the structuring and administration of group insurance solutions.

Lucy Batten, Chief Risk & Operations Officer, Montpellier Legal

Montpellier Legal is a fast-growing conveyancing firm focused on technology and client service, with a branch network of 12 offices.

Lucy has designed and implemented Montpellier Legal’s policy framework to translate its commitment to quality service into effective practice. She led the firm through its successful B Corp certification to embed those values within its governance.

Responsible for compliance, governance and the delivery of legal services, Lucy is the firm’s senior escalation point for complaints. This gives her a practical frontline perspective on why complaints arise, how they escalate and, importantly, what firms can do to prevent them. As a board member, her wider focus is on learning from complaints and using those insights to drive process improvement, while exploring how emerging technology can improve efficiency, strengthen quality control and ultimately reduce risk.

Rory O’Keeffe, Founder and Principal Fractional General Counsel, RMOK Legal

Rory works with startups, scale-ups and private equity-backed businesses on commercial contracts, AI governance, EU AI Act compliance and data protection at RMOK Legal, an SRA-registered alternative legal service provider

He is dual-qualified in England and Wales and in Ireland. Before founding RMOK Legal Rory was a partner at a leading Irish law firm and, before that, director of legal at a global technology consultancy. That mix of in-house and private practice shapes how he works: senior, practical and focused on what the business actually needs.

AI sits at the centre of his practice. He advises organisations on how to choose, contract for and govern AI tools so that their use stands up to clients, insurers and regulators. He sits on the Society for Computers and Law AI Committee and is the author of AI Advantage (2025).

Brett Dixon, President, Law Society

A highly influential figure in the legal sector, Brett is a solicitor with higher rights of audience for civil proceedings, a qualified mediator and a member of the panel of Trust Mediation. His specialism lies in civil procedure with a particular focus on digital change and technology. Drawing on 25 years of professional experience, he has twice served as president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). During his time with APIL, he supported a coherent diversity strategy and opened the board to lay members. He became president of the Law Society of England & Wales in October 2026, having previously served as vice president.

Florence Brocklesby, Founder and Principal, Bellevue Law

Bellevue Law is a London-based boutique firm specialising in workplace law and commercial disputes.

Florence led her firm’s certification as a B Corp in 2024 and was responsible for its sustainable and responsible legal advice pledge. She is a regular writer and speaker on business ethics and workplace culture in the professional services sector.

Florence’s legal practice focusses on workplace law and often involves advising on complex and highly sensitive disputes, with a particular emphasis on discrimination and harassment (including sexual harassment). Many of her clients are fellow lawyers and law firms.

Florence is recognised in the senior executive categories of both Chambers and Legal 500, where she is ranked as a leading partner.

Juliet Oliver, Managing Director, Passmore & Oliver Partners

Juliet leads a global legal regulation consultancy helping law firms, investors, innovators and legal businesses navigate complex regulatory issues and landscapes.

Previously she served as deputy chief executive and general counsel at the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In over a decade at the regulator she oversaw all its major reforms and led many of its key functions, including its enforcement work and its AML directorate. She designed the suite of standards, rules and guidance governing the authorisation and regulation of solicitors, law firms and legal businesses in England and Wales and worked with government, regulators and law societies in the UK and overseas to develop regulatory strategies.

Also an experienced non-executive, Juliet is currently deputy chair of the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, the oversight regulator for health and social care professionals across the UK. She also sits on the Propertymark Regulatory Board and on the board of the Consumer Legal Association.

Iain Miller, Partner, Kingsley Napley

Iain Miller leads Kingsley Napley’s legal services regulation team. He has practised in the field of legal services regulation for over 30 years.  During that time, he has been involved in advising both regulators and the regulated in England and Wales and in other jurisdictions on all aspects of legal services regulation including conduct and ethics.

His practice is now focused on advising law firms, new entrants to the market, investors and partners in law firms. His recent cases include two significant Court of Appeal cases. He acted for CILEX in their successful appeal in Mazur v Charles Russell and also for Dentons in their successful appeal in Dentons v SRA.

Iain is general editor of Cordery on Legal Services and chair of the City of London Law Society’s Professional Rules and Regulation Committee.