Will changes to the regulation of solicitors fracture the consistent assurance of client protection? John Gould reports
- Changes to regulation could erode public confidence that if a solicitor defaults there is some system of redress.
If there were a ‘Hippocratic Oath’ for regulators, the first promise to the gods of legal services ought to be to abstain from doing harm. Sometimes, however, something may be broken and need fixing or a compelling vision of the future cries out for reform. After all, times change.
Innovation often requires risk, which is why major legal changes are usually preceded by ‘impact assessments’; a cynic might say that such assessments have more in common with Mystic Meg than the application of the laws of gravity. It may turn out that changes do not have the predicted impact because they have no substantial impact of any kind—good or bad.
On 14 June 2018 the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) announced changes to the regulation of solicitors following four years of development. The headline objectives of the changes present as things only old-fashioned professional protectionists would question. What’s
