The LSB, which oversees all ten legal services regulators, announced last week that it will review the tools available to regulators with a view to raising the financial penalties at their disposal and enabling them to proactively gather information and share intelligence about wrongdoing.
Alan Kershaw, LSB Chair, said: ‘For some time, we have been concerned that a lack of effective fining powers among some regulators, particularly the SRA, may hamper their ability to tackle wilful and serious misconduct.’
Anna Bradley, chair, SRA Board, said: ‘We have, for some years now advocated that the SRA be given unlimited fining powers to create that deterrent more quickly.
‘While individual solicitors should face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) for serious wrongdoing (and in appropriate cases forfeit their right to practise), that does not preclude the SRA from also fining them and their firm.’
However, the Law Society strongly opposes further hikes in penalties.
Law Society President Lubna Shuja said: ‘There is no evidence that the SRA’s current fining powers are insufficient.
‘The SRA does not exist on its own in the regulatory process. It sits alongside the SDT, which already has draconian powers to sanction any wrongdoing in the solicitors’ profession. These include not only fining powers but also the ability to remove a solicitor from the profession altogether.
‘The SDT remains the appropriate forum for serious cases of alleged misconduct. Further extending the SRA’s powers risks undermining the SDT’s role and authority and potentially reducing the sanctions imposed on bad conduct.’
The maximum penalty the SRA can impose was raised from £2,000 to £25,000 in July, 2022.
The SRA receives more than 10,000 complaints about firms and individual lawyers each year. In 2021/22, it referred 1,741 matters for investigation, resulting in 301 sanctions of which 49 were fines. It referred 76 cases of serious misconduct to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
The government is currently considering increasing the maximum SRA penalty for misconduct that falls into the category of economic crime.
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