The age when a solicitor could buy a copy of the guide to ethics and conduct and put it on their shelf and hope they will never need it have gone. We now have a new Code of Conduct which uses very different language and introduces concepts which are challenging.

The good thing behind the new rules is the desire to restore solicitors as trusted advisors and to give us back some say in how we run our firms. We need now more than ever to be allowed to work in an efficient way without being overly concerned about catastrophes, risk, complaints, and failure.

I entitled this 'Don’t panic' because when you get past the new terminology the new rules are workable. There are very helpful (and free!) guides to the regime on the SRA and Law Society websites. The new code itself is of manageable size and clear. I found the video by the head of the SRA to be reassuring and a good introduction. For the panicky I would suggest the Law Society’s Outcomes-focused regulation: overview which at 14 pages is a good place to start.

The new regime is all about risk but we are used to considering risk; the risk of a not being paid, not knowing how to do the work, the risk of a member of staff being absent, or the risk to the building. I write as a partner in a small, mainly legal aid firm handling crime, immigration, prison, mental health cases, with a growing elderly law department.

Most of the clients are extremely vulnerable in different ways. Because of the type of work we do the risk of being involved in a large fraud, money laundering or even a conflict of interest is low. For example the opponent in most of our files is the state in some shape or other. The risk is high of not being able to manage the client’s expectations - as these are often unreasonable or unrealistic. Many clients have communication problems. My new mental health clients should be sent pages of information on complaints, office standards, who is dealing with the case, the procedure, timescale, different options. I doubt if many of my clients read or even look at this. The new code encourages us to look at our firms, consider what the risks are and address the firm’s procedures to them.

Each firm has to have a compliance officer for the firm itself and a compliance officer for finance and administration. These can be the same person, but they must have sufficient authority to do the work; which is ensuring compliance and also recording failings and reporting them to the SRA unless non-material. In a small firm it's likely to be one of the partners. I suspect this is less daunting if you think most of you are doing this role anyway but from now on we have a title for it!

Legal aid firms are used to having office manuals because of LSC requirements, so it is not too difficult to amend these to fit the new requirements.

What is new, and we are not so used to, is the fact breaches of the rules have to be recorded and then reported. This will be a major change that some firms will struggle with. How will the SRA react to such reports? No doubt if you do not report anything you will be in trouble. Will it be dammed if you do and dammed if you do not?

The answer to this quandary must be, in a word, openness and frankness. I know that is two words but you know what I mean. We need - as businesses - people and professionals to have an office environment that encourages us to raise concerns at an early stage irrespective of the person’s status. Do we as partners keep an eye of what is going on, can the receptionist tell someone that so-and-so never returns calls, is getting irate letters written in green ink everyday and that so-and-so is always in the pub after 12 on Wednesdays?

If we have openness about sharing problems it makes life better, and perhaps it is easier to report our concerns. There is method in this madness, as if we find that Mr. Smith never returns calls after 2pm is it because he is overworked and is dealing with his emails? If there is a problem identifying interest payments is it because the firm ought to routinely set up designated accounts on all balances of a certain type?

I wrote earlier about getting past the terminology. I find phrases like Outcomes-focused regulation and indicative behaviours to be gobbledegook. What it means is there are some things you must do and some things you must think about doing. If you think about it simply then there is no need to panic. There are some basics which we must do which are really common sense. There are things which are suggestions to consider. Don’t panic.

David Pickup is a partner in Aylesbury based Pickup & Scott