The Law and Regulation of Solicitors: Serious Breaches and Practising Certificate Conditions

Katie Jackson is a former regulator at the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Council for Licensed Conveyancers. She is currently an examiner on the Professional Skills Course in Finance and Business for Datalaw, and a course provider for the National Association of Paralegals in Professional Skills. She is also a consultant in professional standards to law firms.

Part 1: Professional practice
Professional practice as a concept
Historical development for solicitors
Annual practising year
Embodiment in practising certificate
Technical content (including discussion of legislative and regulatory basis):
Introduction to current legal services regulation and duties to the regulator (SRA)
Current regulatory position
Historical legislative and regulatory development (dating back to 1900s)
Discursive content (including ideas for implementation or discussion in a firm):
Individual expression as a form of practice
Ethics and reporting
The concept of the reasonable man
Conducting your own investigation
Checks and balances in legal regulation
Comparative standards of regulation (including overseas)
Comparative professional practice for others (accountants, management consultants, medical professionals)

Part 2. Practising arrangements
Technical content (including legislative and regulatory basis):
The practising year, practice events, and individual practice
Practising certificates (First issue, renewal, suspension, revocation, holding over)
Firm recognition
Reserved work
Non reserved work
Available practising arrangements (traditional practice, RELs, RFLs, freelancers, ABS, employing solicitors)
Discursive content (including ideas for implementation or discussion in a firm):
The practising year, and timelines for management of individual issues
Options outside regulation, or with alternative regulators
National and international implications
Differences in regulatory outcomes and prosecution standards for the various forms of practice
Ideas for firm strategic management and individual career development based on various forms of practice
Organisational structure
What does the practising year mean to you?
Non reporting relationships with regulators
Accountant reporting and the practising year
Managing renewal
Closing down

Part 3. Practising Certificate conditions
Technical content (including legislative and regulatory basis):
Imposition of conditions
Suspension
Criminal charges
Dishonesty
Risk management
Public interest test
Common conditions
Discursive content (including ideas for implementation or discussion in a firm):
Achieving a balance in risk management
The test for dishonesty and the reporting standard
Managing others with conditions: COLP, COFA or HR?
Do conditions work?
Representations for conditions and risk management
SDT outcomes and SRA outcomes
Regulators and regulatory decision making
Restriction or more practice?
Addressing personal development needs
Confidentiality, public confidence, and publication in an age of digital information
Improving compliance through management

Part 4. Serious breach
Technical content (including legislative and regulatory basis):
Reporting requirements (individual, firm, overseas)
Reporting requirements for reporting accountants
Other reporting and regulatory requirements
Seeking advice
SDT and the standard of proof
Regulatory outcomes
Firm implications
Discursive content (including ideas for implementation or discussion in a firm):
Standards of behaviour for solicitors
The reasonable man
Comparative reporting (international)
COLP, COFA and accountant debates
Reasonableness
Dishonesty and reporting
Managing investigations
Pastoral support; thoughts and feelings
Improving compliance
Whistleblowing
Fiduciary duties
Organisational culture
Organisational learning as a form of risk management
Leadership