Small firms: developing your business Robert Loughlin Rachel Lewis

The legal services sector UK 370,000 employed in legal services 62% solicitors or employed in solicitor firms £25.7 billion value of legal services Small Firms 26,000 solicitors 48% of law firms (using our definition of 0-4 partners and turnover of less than £400,000)

Changing legal market…

How can we help? A strong and effective Regulator – striking the right balance Understand the pressures that small firms are under Take a proportionate approach Remove prescription & red tape to enable innovation & growth Be flexible – change the regulatory approach as the market changes Make it easier for you to deal with us

What are we doing to help?

Changes to our handbook Regulatory reform programme Training for Tomorrow Review of consumer protection Question of Trust Looking to the Future Fees review SRA Innovate Open data

Improving our operation

Improving our operation

SRA Innovate Speaker notes – this slides covers the benefits of Looking to the future and how it will help address unmet needSingle profession There will not be two tiers of solicitor - all will be subject to the same education and training and ethical standards (more robust and clearly articulated than before in the new Code). Our proposals will reduce current tiers between solicitors – for example, in house , private practice. A two tier legal services market already exists: reserved activities are regulated and non-reserved services can be delivered outside of legal regulation. The latter are outside of our jurisdiction. Solicitors are often best placed to offer legal services, but at present they can't offer services in this wider market. We want to create a market where solicitors can offer their services in all areas of the legal market and compete with those already doing so outside of regulation. This is good for solicitors and good for consumers. Less protection for consumers Under the new rules there will be no erosion of consumer protections, instead there will be an increase in consumer choice. All solicitors must meet strict standards and ethical principles irrespective of where they work. What will be different is that there will be separate codes for solicitors and for SRA regulated firms. We will take steps to ensure that consumers are aware of their regulatory protections, allowing them to make an informed decision on what type of legal service to purchase. Instructing an SRA regulated firm will mean access to strict consumer protections, including PII and the compensation fund, business systems and controls

Growing your business

How can we help? Pre-application meetings Regulatory reform SRA Innovate Risk Outlook There are a number of things the SRA are doing to help with reducing the regulatory burden on firms. We have also set up SRA innovate in which we are working with individuals and firms who have innovative ideas – talk about innovate. Talk about risk outlook. Pre-application meetings – how we do these.

Contact us authorisation@sra.org.uk Dedicated support available today If you have any queries about applying, after applying or future changes please contact the contact centre or professional ethics. We are also in the process of updating our web pages so please refer to the website in the first instance.

What support is available? Ethics helpline Dedicated small firms team Cybercrime Small firms virtual reference group Changes to accounts rules

Types of issues to avoid Failure to deal with the destruction of files properly Disorderly wind down of firm Accounts rules breaches Failure to deal with residual balances Failure to comply with undertakings Misleading clients and third parties Not reporting material breaches to the SRA IT security issues Sudden departure of partner

Risk based proportionate approach In the last 12 months Supervision have considered 4,880 conduct matters. Resulting in:

What more can we do to help? Thank you… What more can we do to help?