1. Small firms: developing your business Robert Loughlin Rachel Lewis

2. 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)

3. Changing legal market…

4. 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

5. What are we doing to help?

6. 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

7. Improving our operation

9. Improving our operation

10. 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

11. Growing your business

12. 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.

13. 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.

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

15. 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

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

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