Closed Consultation
Changes to the Recognised Bodies Regulations
20 June 2008
Legal Services Act: New forms of practice and regulationConsultation paper 5
The deadline for submission of responses to consultation paper 5 on the Legal Services Act was 21 April 2008.
Consultation outputs—including reports, recommendations and proposed regulations—were submitted to the SRA Board for consideration in mid-June 2008:
- Changes to rules and regulations to enable LDPs and implement other changes made by the Legal Services Act – Overview paper
- Annex 1 – Design principles
- Annex 2 – Equality impact assessment
- Legal Services Act 2007 – Draft SRA Recognised Bodies Regulations [2009] – Report of the Firm Based Regulation Group
- Supplemental paper – Annex 1A (replaces Annex 1)
The information that appears below is for reference purposes only.
This consultation invites you to comment on proposed amendments to the Solicitors' Recognised Bodies Regulations 2007. The amendments relate to our development of a regulatory framework to
- facilitate firm-based regulation, and
- allow the legal disciplinary practices (LDPs), and participation by non-lawyers, as permitted under the Legal Services Act.
We hope that LDPs can become available as early as March 2009.
The paper can be read in conjunction with our initial policy paper Legal Services Act: New forms of practice and regulation, published in November 2007.
The paper also relates closely to our consultation on amendments to the "framework of practice" rules in the Solicitors' Code of Conduct 2007—Legal Services Act: Consultation paper 2 (PDF 318K)—especially the amendments to rules 14, 20 and 25 of the Code, which are annexed to this paper for ease of reference.
The changes discussed are of importance to all private practice firms (solicitors' firms providing services to the public in England and Wales). In future, all such firms will have to be recognised bodies, recognised sole practitioners or firms authorised and regulated by another approved regulator. Failure to obtain and renew recognition will have serious consequences.
The Solicitors' Recognised Bodies Regulations 2007 (the Regulations) govern the procedures for recognition of a recognised body. The regulations currently cover applications, appeals, the period of recognition and when recognition can be revoked or expires. They also lay down what information is kept on the register of recognised bodies, and what is shown on a certificate of recognition.
There are four annexes to this paper:
- Annex 1 – (the subject of this consultation) the Regulations, showing proposed amendments,
- Annex 2 – (for reference) the amended rule 14 of the Solicitors' Code of Conduct (the Code) shown in consultation paper 2,
- Annex 3 – (for reference) an extract from the amended rule 20 of the Code shown in consultation paper 2, and
- Annex 4 – (for reference) the amended rule 25 of the Code shown in consultation paper 2.
This consultation is aimed at all those interested in the provision and regulation of legal services, including consumers.
Some of the detail is technical, but the changes proposed will affect all firms which will be recognised bodies and those practising in them. For example:
- paragraph 6 (temporary emergency recognition) may be of limited interest to firms which are not partnerships; but
- paragraph 4 (approval of non-lawyer managers) may raise issues not only for those firms which intend to bring in non-lawyer managers, but also those which may want to bring in a foreign lawyer manager from a state-regulated profession.