SRA investigation solicitors

Yes. You are under a regulatory obligation to cooperate and to provide information and documents when properly required to do so, including under section 44B of the Solicitors Act 1974. Failing to cooperate is a breach in its own right and is routinely charged alongside the original allegation. Cooperating does not mean answering everything immediately, or without advice on what is actually being asked and what is privileged.

An Explanation with Warnings letter, usually called an EWW, is the SRA’s formal notice that it considers there is a case to answer. It sets out the allegations, the evidence relied on and the outcome being considered, and invites written representations within a short deadline. A significant proportion of matters are resolved at this stage with no action or a lower outcome than the one proposed.

The standard period for written representations is 14 days from the date of the letter. Extensions are sometimes granted where there is good reason and the request is made promptly, but they are not automatic and should never be assumed.

A Regulatory Settlement Agreement is a negotiated agreement between you and the SRA resolving an investigation on agreed facts and an agreed outcome, without a contested Tribunal hearing. The SRA publishes a summary of every RSA it enters into. Three things are negotiable: the agreed facts, the outcome, and the wording of the published summary.

An intervention is the SRA closing a law firm immediately and taking possession of client money, files and practice documents, usually without warning. The grounds are in Schedule 1 to the Solicitors Act 1974. The practising certificate is suspended, the client account frozen and the firm cannot continue to act. It can be challenged in the High Court, but the deadline is measured in days.

Only the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal can strike a solicitor off the roll. The SRA cannot. What the SRA can do is refer the matter to the Tribunal and prosecute it there, and it can impose a wide range of outcomes itself including rebukes, fines and conditions on your practising certificate. For non-authorised staff a section 43 order has a comparable practical effect.

You will be told. The SRA writes to you, and in most cases the first contact is a letter identifying the concern and asking for your explanation, or a formal request for information and documents. What you will not necessarily be told is who reported you, how serious the SRA considers the matter, or what outcome it has in mind.

The SRA publishes its disciplinary decisions on its own website and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal publishes its judgments. Both are searchable by name and indexed by search engines. Where a matter settles, the wording of the published summary is often negotiable — which is a substantive part of the work, not an afterthought.

The investigation itself is not published while it is ongoing. Outcomes usually are. Rebukes, fines, conditions, section 43 orders and Regulatory Settlement Agreements are published on the SRA’s website, and Tribunal hearings are generally held in public.

Months rather than weeks, and often more than a year. Straightforward matters resolved at the EWW stage can conclude in a few months. Matters involving forensic investigation, parallel criminal proceedings or a Tribunal referral commonly run well beyond twelve.

Serious breaches usually must be reported, so the question is rarely whether but when and how. A self-report that is early, accurate and properly framed reads very differently from one that arrives after the SRA has already heard from someone else. Take advice first — the wording becomes the SRA’s starting point, and a poorly framed report can concede more than the facts require.

Yes. Conduct outside practice can engage the SRA Principles where it affects public trust in the profession. Criminal convictions and cautions, dishonesty in a personal capacity, and sexual misconduct or harassment allegations have all led to regulatory findings arising from conduct wholly unconnected with client work.

Yes. Regulatory obligations attach to you personally, and leaving the firm does not end the SRA’s jurisdiction. Matters are frequently reported by a former firm after an internal review, or emerge during a forensic investigation into that firm. You may no longer have access to the files, so securing access is an early priority.

The SRA Principles are the overarching ethical requirements applying to everyone the SRA regulates — covering upholding the rule of law and the proper administration of justice, acting with integrity, acting with independence, and acting in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the profession and in legal services. Most SRA allegations are framed as breaches of one or more Principles, often alongside specific provisions of the Codes of Conduct or the Accounts Rules.

The SRA Enforcement Strategy is its published statement of how it decides whether to take regulatory action and what action to take. It focuses on the seriousness of the conduct, the risk to the public and to confidence in the profession, and the culpability and harm involved. Understanding how it is applied in practice, rather than how it reads, is a large part of predicting where a matter is heading.

In most cases it is unaffected and you can continue to practise. That changes if the SRA imposes conditions — commonly preventing you from holding client money or practising as a sole practitioner. Where a firm is intervened, the practising certificates of the solicitors concerned are suspended immediately.

Many professional indemnity policies extend to regulatory defence costs, and some firms hold separate cover for it. Check the policy and notify early, because late notification can prejudice cover. Cover for the individual may differ from cover for the firm, particularly where interests diverge — which is common in Accounts Rules matters.

In most cases yes, but the route depends on the decision. Some carry a right of internal review by the SRA. Others can be appealed to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Tribunal decisions are appealable to the High Court. A decision to refer a matter to the Tribunal is not itself appealable — the answer to that is to defend the proceedings. Time limits are short and strictly applied.

No. The SRA is the independent regulatory arm of the Law Society of England and Wales, operating under the Legal Services Act 2007 framework and overseen by the Legal Services Board. It is not a government department. It does hold statutory powers under the Solicitors Act 1974, including powers to require information and to intervene in a practice.

A fixed fee for defined pieces of work, agreed before we start. If the matter runs on, £250–£425 per hour plus VAT depending on who does the work, always with an agreed cap. The first 30 minutes are free. Full pricing

Yes. Legal advice is privileged, nothing is reported to the SRA, and calling us doesn’t oblige you to instruct us.