Timing can be an unfortunate thing. The Solicitors Regulation Authority probably didn’t know that the High Court would publish its ruling overturning an intervention on the same day as the SDT reversed the decision to rebuke a solicitor.
Both rulings were effectively a slapdown to the SRA adjudicators involved, who had acted disproportionately and failed to take into account the mitigation of those whose careers were affected and potentially ruined.
Defeats in the tribunal and the court will have been a setback, but the real bodyblow will have been former SRA board member Tony Williams writing in The Times that change was needed at the top following the Axiom Ince debacle. ‘Either Anna Bradley, the chair, and/or Paul Philip, the chief executive, should take responsibility and resign,’ wrote Williams. Both insisted last month they had no intention of doing so.
The mistakes of adjudicators and the failure to curtail losses at Axiom Ince are symptomatic of an organisation that appears to have lost sight of what really matters and is under-resourced for the challenges it faces.
Both the intervention into the retiring solicitor, and rebuke of a well-meaning owner who made a minor error, spoke of a lack of empathy of what it entails to be a practitioner and what it means to those who are.
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The intervention was made without any appreciation of the difficulties faced by a sole practitioner looking for a succession plan for their business and finding only an opportunistic convicted fraudster. This dilemma of how to exit the profession gracefully is faced by hundreds if not thousands of others – where is the SRA in helping these people make a smooth transition?
In the rebuke, the tribunal ruled that the solicitor had made a minor and inadvertent mistake in writing to a client which had been long rectified. Was there any justification in going after him and leaving an indelible red mark on his record? Was there any reason at all to spend £16,000 trying to prove this was the right call? Again, we could view this incident as the SRA failing to appreciate the inherent difficulties in dealing with a disgruntled client, and automatically assuming the worst of the solicitor.
In neither case was the solicitor given the benefit of the doubt.
There seems to be a growing disconnect between the regulator and the profession which has only been worsened by the leadership’s intransigence over the investigation into the collapse of Axiom Ince. The SRA insists that most solicitors have confidence in their regulator, but this assumption is swiftly cast into doubt upon speaking with them.
The SRA deserves some sympathy nevertheless. It is being required to deal with far more than its initial remit ever envisaged. SLAPPs, the Post Office scandal, sexual misconduct, NDAs are all national stories being handled by a regulator operating on a relatively small scale. The idea of the SRA (annual budget: £157m) standing alongside the FCA (£755m) as gatekeepers for the prevention of money laundering is fanciful. Unpalatable as it might be, the SRA is also hamstrung by its Birmingham location and the ability to attract the calibre of adjudicators it needs. Are the best people really going to work for the money on offer in the Midlands?
What the SRA needs, more than anything, is a reset. That may well include changes at the top, and it is telling that people such as Williams with the insight and knowledge of the SRA are suggesting heads should roll. But it also needs to get back to doing what it is supposed to do: proportionate regulation of solicitors and protection of the public. Clearly, neither of these ambitions are currently being met.
The SRA wants unlimited fining powers and would presumably put such powers in the hands of those same adjudicators making these mistakes. Until we can be sure the SRA has the required leadership, quality and resources to stop such errors happening, the notion of giving it more power should be for the birds.
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