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Publicity—law firms—checklist

Publicity—law firms—checklist This Checklist is designed to help you determine whether you have the systems in place to comply with regulatory requirements that apply to law firms in relation to publicity. It should be read in conjunction with subtopic: Publicity & inducements—law firms. SRA requirements in relation to publicity are contained in the SRA Principles, the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms (Code for Firms), SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors (Code for Solicitors) and the SRA Transparency Rules. This is supplemented by guidance documents and warning notices. See Practice Note: Publicity—law firms. General Requirement Compulsory or recommended Comments (if any) ☐ Establish a procedure for ensuring any publicity relating to your practice is aligned with the SRA Principles and is not misleading.See Precedents: Publicity material compliance check—law firms and Publicity material audit form—law firms. Compulsory SRA PrinciplesCode for Solicitors, para 1.4 SRA Code of Conduct for Firms (Code for Firms), para 1.4 (Insert any comments you may wish to make regarding your firm’s arrangements) ☐ When you...

Checklist and timeline—entering into a conditional fee agreement with an insolvency practitioner client prior to 6 April 2016 [Archived]

Checklist and timeline—entering into a conditional fee agreement with an insolvency practitioner client prior to 6 April 2016 [Archived] The reason for entering into a conditional fee agreement (CFA) in insolvency litigation The range of circumstances and claims in respect of which solicitors may wish to enter into CFAs with insolvency practitioner (IP) and insolvent entity clients is vast. Often the relevant insolvent estates will—almost by definition—have little or no funds available within them from which to finance court proceedings, and creditors will rarely wish those limited funds to be expended in this way. This makes CFA-funded action a superficially attractive—although by no means the only available—mechanism for securing recoveries which cannot be achieved in such cases without at least the threat of litigation. This attractiveness was greatly enhanced for so long as insolvency litigation continued to benefit (until 6 April 2016) from an exemption from the effects of section 44 of Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012) (meaning that for CFAs entered into before...

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Personal injury referrals—SRA examples, flowchart and guidance

Personal injury referrals—SRA examples, flowchart and guidance This Practice Note summarises guidance and examples given by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about what may constitute a permitted or prohibited referral arrangement for personal injury matters: The SRA guidance was published under the SRA regime 2011, but appears to apply equally to the SRA 2019 regime. What is prohibited? To fall foul of the personal injury (PI) referral fee ban, you must: • receive a referral • of a PI or ancillary claim • pay a prohibited referral fee, ie a fee for the referral itself, rather than in consideration for the provision of services or for another reason For more guidance see Practice Notes: Personal injury referral fee—the statutory regime and Personal injury referral arrangements—SRA requirements—What does the SRA prohibit? SRA guidance It is clear from Solicitors Regulation Authority's (SRA) guidance that there are two circumstances in which it considers the referral fee ban will not apply: • there is no referral as defined by the Legal...

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Client care policy—regulatory requirements 2011 [Archived]

Client care is about providing a proper standard of service to your client. Chapter 1 of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Code of Conduct 2011 sets out your regulatory obligations.There is no regulatory requirement to have a written client care policy, except in relation to complaints, but as you may have to justify your client care arrangements to the SRA, you should ensure you maintain a proper record of the arrangements you have and be able to show they are appropriate.This Practice Note explains the regulatory requirements on client care. For more on complaints, see Practice Note: Complaints—regulatory requirements—law firms 2011 [Archived].The requirementsYou must:•act with integrity•not allow your independence to be compromised•act in the best interests of each client•provide a proper standard of service to your clients•behave in a way that maintains public trust•comply with your legal and regulatory obligationsThe information you provide to clients and the procedures you put in place will vary depending on the needs and circumstances of your clients and the services you provide. For example,...

What’s new and what’s changed in 2019—Risk & Compliance [Archived]

What’s new and what’s changed in 2019—Risk & Compliance [Archived] ARCHIVED: This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. For more information, see subtopic: New and updated content in Risk and Compliance. This Practice Note keeps you informed, on a month-by-month basis, about amended existing content and newly-published content in Risk & Compliance. This content may have been added or amended to reflect regulatory changes or as part of our ongoing content development. December 2019 New or updated? Content Reason New Content development Updated Practice Notes:— Working with foreign lawyers—the registered foreign lawyer (RFL) regime—Working with Swiss lawyers—the registered European lawyer (REL) and registered Swiss lawyer (RSL) regimes Updated to reflect regulatory requirements in the SRA Standards and Regulations 2019. Updated Practice Note: How to process personal data lawfully Updated section ’Grounds required for special category personal data’ following new ICO guidance expanding the interpretation of the lawful basis for processing in relation to legal claims. Updated Practice Note: Exclusion and limitation of liability ...

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Using client account as a banking facility—case studies

Using client account as a banking facility—case studies We must not use a client account to provide banking facilities to clients or third parties. This is a strict requirement of rule 3.3 of the SRA Accounts Rules, which applies to our general client account and any separate designated client accounts. Allowing our client account to be used as a banking facility carries the risk that we may assist money laundering or similar offences. You must be aware of and comply with our policy on anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorist financing (CTF) and counter-proliferation financing when receiving client or office money. [This includes our separate policy on receiving cash.] The SRA can impose heavy penalties for breach of rule 3.3. There does not need to be a direct risk of money laundering, etc or any suggestion of impropriety. A breach of rule 3.3 in itself is sufficient for the SRA to impose a penalty on the firm and/or any individuals involved. We must only receive money into our client account where...

An introduction to compliance—law firms—post-training assessment questions

An introduction to compliance—law firms—post-training assessment questions How to use this test These questions are designed to test your understanding after your attendance at our training on an introduction to compliance. After you have completed this test, please return it to [insert name]. General Name of person completing test [Insert name] Role [Insert role] Date [Insert date] Multiple choice questions Circle the correct answer. Question Multiple choice answers 1. As a SRA-regulated law firm, what do we have to comply with? (a) UK legislation(b) SRA Standards and Regulations and Law Society Practice Notes(c) SRA Standards and Regulations and any other applicable legislation and rules that apply to our business generally 2. How many SRA Principles are there? (a) 5(b) 7(c) 10 3. Which of the following is not one of the SRA Principles? (a) Act with honesty(b) Act in a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion(c) Comply with your legal and regulatory obligations 4. Who might the SRA take action against for a breach...

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The rules on issuing a second contract, in a contract race situation, refer to ‘seller’. Does this apply they apply equally to the grant or disposal of a leasehold interest?

The rules on issuing a second contract, in a contract race situation, refer to ‘seller’. Does this apply they apply equally to the grant or disposal of a leasehold interest? SRA Code of Conduct Chapter 11 covers the relations that a solicitor has with third parties. Outcome 11.3 of the solicitors regulation authority (SRA) Code of Conduct applies to contract races ie when a seller instructs their solicitor to deal with two or more separate buyers and provides: ‘where you act for a seller of land, you inform all buyers immediately of the seller’s intention to deal with more than one buyer’ The SRA Code however does not provide further guidance on how this should work in practice. The Law Society Practice Note on Conflict of Interests deals with reference to ‘buyer and seller’ in relation to conflict of interest and states: ‘2. 6 Acting for a buyer and seller 2.6.1 What does the SRA Code say? IB 3.14 in chapter 3 of the SRA Code is about...

A spouse obtained initial advice in relation to divorce and financial matters from a firm of solicitors at their London office. A file was opened and they received a client care letter. They then decided not to instruct the firm to carry out any further work following the initial advice received. The other spouse subsequently instructed the same firm but at a different office to act for them. Is there a conflict of interest in this scenario?

A spouse obtained initial advice in relation to divorce and financial matters from a firm of solicitors at their London office. A file was opened and they received a client care letter. They then decided not to instruct the firm to carry out any further work following the initial advice received. The other spouse subsequently instructed the same firm but at a different office to act for them. Is there a conflict of interest in this scenario? Paragraph 6 of the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms 2019 deals with conflicts of interest, in conjunction with SRA guidance dated 29 October 2019. Client conflict may exist where a solicitor’s separate duties to act in the best interests of two or more clients conflict (known as ‘conflict of interest’ in the SRA 2019 regulatory regime). See Practice Note: Conflicts of interest—family law, in particular section: Former clients. In ZS v

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PI & Clinical Negligence weekly highlights—23 January 2025

This week's edition of PI & Clinical Negligence weekly highlights includes a Court of Appeal decision that determined the police do not generally owe a duty to protect individuals from harm by third parties and a High Court decision where the parties argued that a breakdown of expert and MRO fees were required to assess reasonableness. We also bring you another case on solicitor-own client arguments relating to the deduction of success fees. In addition, we have our usual roundup of other news, cases and New Law Journal articles of interest.

Question of the week: Is it necessary to obtain consent for carrying out electronic searches for matters which would not fall under the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime?

This Q&A considers whether it is necessary to obtain consent for carrying out electronic searches for matters which would not fall under the anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) regime.