Welcome to the latest SRA Update. We may be heading towards holiday season, but I am sure that, like us, law firms are as busy as ever. Whether you are interested in the potential opportunities technology and innovation provides, why individuals from certain backgrounds may be overrepresented in complaints made to us, or insights from the unreserved legal sector, I hope you find this edition of SRA Update useful. For those of you who have not logged into your mySRA account recently, we also outline the arrangements we have introduced to make your account more secure, and explain you need to do whenever you log in the future.
The window is also now open for your firm to provide details about the diversity of your workforce. We run this exercise once every two years and your co-operation in providing the data by the 23 July deadline is greatly appreciated. Hopefully this may never apply to your firm, but you can also read about our new approach to issuing financial penalties – including the fixed penalties we can apply for lesser breaches of our rules, for example failure to respond to our diversity data exercise. I hope you find this edition of use, and that all of you who do manage a break over the summer, enjoy it.
We require all law firms to report your firmwide diversity data every two years, and have written directly to your authorised signatory or organisational contact to request they now do this. If you hold either of these roles, you have until 23 July to complete your return.
Read more about: Submit your firms’ diversity information now
To make your mySRA account more secure, we have introduced an additional verification step. Next time you log in, if you have not already done it, you will need to register a phone number. You will then need to have this phone with you whenever you log in in the future, so that we can send you a code by SMS text or call you to verify your identity.
Read more about: Verifying your mySRA account
Do you want to learn more about how technology and innovation can help your firm and clients, both now and in the future? Hear what experts from across the legal sector, in law firms, from technology providers and from consumer groups had to say on this, and other lawtech issues, at our recent SRA Innovate events.
Read more about: Hear from the experts on lawtech and innovation
What are AI and ChatGPT, how do they work, and what are their potential uses in a law firm setting? Watch SRA Data Scientist, Tom Wood’s, 10-minute plain English explanation from our SRA Innovate event.
Read more about: Watch our 10-minute guide to AI
Practising certificates and registrations renewals will take place from 1 to 31 October 2023. There are no new questions or changes to what we are asking for. However, we have made enhancements to the applications to improve your experience.
Read more about: Practising certificate renewals 2023/24
There is still time for you to have your say on our proposed 2023-26 Corporate Strategy. The strategy has been developed after extensive discussions with a range of experts and outlines our proposed priorities and key work programmes for the next three years. If you are interested in having your say, consultation runs until 2 August.
Read more about: Still time to have your say on our Corporate Strategy
The unreserved legal services market is a significant part of the sector and providers are both regulated and unregulated. We undertook research on this area to see how businesses, individuals and the unregulated providers themselves felt about the legal services available. Find out what we discovered.
Read more about: Research on unreserved legal activities
Find out how offering unbundled legal services could increase your client base. Research into the experiences of clients and firms showed an appetite for this approach, with firms saying adopting unbundling could help them attract more business.
Read more about: Unbundling could your increase client base
Due to technical reasons, our policy for usernames for mySRA accounts has had to change. This means usernames included a full stop have had to be changed. If this applies to you, and you have not already done so, find out how to access your new username in order to log in to your account.
Read more about: Full stop to full stops in mySRA usernames
Join our free webinar on Monday 11 September for an insight into trends seen in cases within our AML Investigations Team, where enforcement action has or is being taken for breaches of the money laundering, terrorist financing and financial sanctions regimes. You can also pick up tips on what controls you can put in place to avoid common AML breaches.
Read more about: Webinar – anti-money laundering enforcement
Are you worried about your health affecting your work? Life as a solicitor can be challenging and the demands and pressures can easily build up. We can signpost you to sources of help and make adjustments for you if you are in difficulty.
Read more about: Your health, your career
