Solicitors Regulation Authority

Solicitors Regulation Authority visits

The Practice Standards Unit (PSU) of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) conducts monitoring visits to firms of solicitors throughout England and Wales with the aim of improving standards of client care in the profession through the promotion of client care and practice excellence.

This course will provide a brief introduction to the work of the PSU, and will cover everything you will need to know about the visit process from notification to post visit action, including:

• Compliance in context - a brief history of law firm regulation explaining why it is important for law firms to achieve compliance and be able to prove it. This also includes an introduction to the SRA's current approach and some interesting statistics.
• Who might visit, and why my firm - introduces the different departments which may visit and their different focuses and approaches
• The Practice Standards Unit visit process - what firms can expect during a visit and how the PSU adviser selects case files to review, as this is rarely a random exercise. This part of the talk also considers the typical contents of a post-visit report and how firms might respond, the schedule that the PSU send to firms, the documentation firms need to have ready and two questionnaires commonly sent out with the notification letter.
• Referrals to other units for regulatory action - this summarises the types of breaches which might get firms into trouble and looks at the process should a firm be referred on to other units within the SRA.
• The course will conclude by looking at what current consultations and future changes might impact on PSU visits in the future and introduces the subject of Outcome Focused Regulation. It also reviews the importance of Rule 5 procedures and considers a range of priorities and actions for law firms to take forward.