SRA Make a Major Change to the Rules Regulating Law Firms

LONDON, Nov. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The 25^thNovember 2019 sees the SRA's new rules regulating Solicitors come into force - officially allowing Solicitors to practice in unreserved matters on an unregulated basis, whilst using the title 'Solicitor'. Although unregulated practices have been operating for a number of years in different guises, the SRA did not officially endorse such practices, and practitioners could not offer unregulated legal services as a "Solicitor". The new rules not only allow Solicitors to practice in an unregulated manner, but also now officially state that professional indemnity insurance is not required for these unregulated practices.

This is a huge step forward for the legal industry and should mean that firms can now offer a far more commercial service at reduced hourly rates to the legal consumer. But will established firms actually be able to achieve this without significant structural change?

Robert Taylor, CEO and General Counsel of 360 Law Group said "This is a great step forward and my company has been pushing the industry to take this step for over five years. I can see that the change in regulations will benefit law firms themselves, but my concern is whether this will have any real impact on the cost or quality of services for legal consumers.

Reducing legal fees and improving service levels was one of the primary concerns of Sir David Clementi, as stated in his report that was published in 2004 "Final Report on the Review of the Regulatory Framework for Legal Services in England and Wales", which led to Parliament implementing the Legal Services Act 2007, massively deregulating the legal profession in England and Wales.

My belief is that the new changes will have very little effect, if any at all, in reducing fees for the legal consumer. The only way to reduce fees, as in any industry, is to reduce overhead cost, and that cannot be achieved whilst retaining prestigious city centre offices, outdated systems and employing a myriad of costly support staff. In my view, and as we have demonstrated consistently over 5 years, you have to run a law firm like any other commercial venture, you have to deliver high quality services utilising highly experienced and qualified staff delivered from a highly efficient and cost-effective base. Only then can your hourly rates be low enough for most legal consumers to afford without loss of service quality.

360 Law Group provide their legal services to a broad range of legal consumers, from individuals, to SMEs, public companies and multinational corporations, all through a distributed infrastructure that produces a global overhead of less than 10% of turnover.

In my view, changing the regulations is not enough, the UK legal industry has to shift from an archaic cost burden model that services a limited portion of the market, to one that is cost effective for all to utilise."

About 360 Law Group Limited

360 Law Group was one of the front runners in creating an unregulated practice in the UK and has since expanded that model to operate in over 30 countries worldwide. They are now the only UK practice that provides clients with a highly cost-effective hourly and subscription legal service on a global basis, as well as operating a separate SRA regulated practice, providing clients with a true choice. The model was so well received, that in November 2019, 360 Law Group was listed in the Times UK Top 200 Law Firms 2020. Our global business law hourly rates are fixed between £141.75 to £250.00 (excl VAT) per hour depending the country in which we are instructed.

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For further information please contact:
Robert Taylor - CEO & General Counsel
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Web: https://www.360lawgroup.co.uk