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25 January 2013 / Ronnie Fox
Issue: 7545 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Under pressure

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Ronnie Fox studies the impact of regulation on legal fees

These days any story on the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is almost guaranteed to lead to angry responses from solicitors infuriated at the constant announcements and changes to their regulatory obligations leaving them bemused at what exactly they have to do to avoid breaking the rules. The “comments” section on the Law Society Gazette website is testament to that.

Recession pressure

Law firms are feeling the pressure as much as anyone in a recession. This is exacerbated by the constantly increasing regulatory burden on solicitors. One of the first major initiatives taken by the SRA was to make every firm of solicitors change its letterhead and every solicitor change his or her auto-signature. It was not sufficient to say that a solicitor was “regulated” by the SRA. A solicitor had to say he or she was “authorised and regulated” by the SRA. This was an expensive and, to my mind, wholly unnecessary exercise. It is not clear how the public or the profession

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