Compl-i - November 2011
Welcome to our Compl-i newsletter, a
bi-monthly review of regulatory and compliance issues affecting
solicitors.
The past couple of months have seen great
changes to the legal landscape. The new SRA Handbook and Code of
Conduct came into effect on 6 October and the first ABS came into
being (albeit regulated by the Council for Legal Conveyancers
rather than the SRA). Compliance with the new Code is now mandatory
and training of staff is required. We are assisting a number of
firms of varying size and structure to get to grips with the new
regime and providing bespoke internal training for firms.
In addition, and to help prospective COLPs and
COFAs, we are holding a series of roundtable discussion meetings;
you should have received a separate invitation to join us at one of
these meetings. We are delighted at the response and our Manchester
meeting is already oversubscribed. A further meeting has been
scheduled to accommodate this so if you are still interested in
attending, please see the details attached in the training section
of this newsletter.
As we face the new regulatory challenges there
will, we are sure, be many questions you will have and issues that
are of concern to you. We will be including some Q and As in our
newsletters so if you have any particular requests for topics that
you would find useful to be covered in our newsletter, do please
let us know by contacting Michelle Garlick at michelle.garlick@weightmans.com
or on 0161 233 7426.
Featured articles
Weathering “the perfect storm”
In this article,
Dominic Vincent and Michelle Garlick, both partners in our
Manchester office, assess the challenges that are being faced by
solicitors in what has been described as “the perfect
storm”.
SRA roadshow review
Susan Ford feeds back
on the recently held SRA Roadshow in Manchester on Outcomes Focused
Regulation.
Risk management through training
Michelle Garlick
considers the SRA’s move towards proactive risk-based regulation
and what this means for firms.
Outcomes Focused Regulation is upon us – Are you ready?
Michelle Garlick
reviews one of the first initiatives by the SRA under the new
Outcomes Focused regime for collecting data on complaints
handling.
Hot topics
In this section we
provide updates on Referral Fees, OFR, Alternative Business
Structures, the increase in the number of litigants in person, and
LeO’s recent decision to ‘name and shame’.
Practice notes
We include in this
section practice notes recently published by the Law
Society.
Consultations
This section provides
information on the SRA’s recently opened consultations.
Training
In this section we
provide details of our training programme and our upcoming
breakfast seminars.
Questions & answers
A new section to our
newsletter, in this edition we will be answering questions raised
at a recent COLP/COFA master class given by Michelle
Garlick.
This update does not attempt to provide a full analysis of
those matters with which it deals and is provided for general
information purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal
advice and should not be treated as a substitute for legal
advice.
Weightmans LLP accepts no responsibility for any loss that may
arise from reliance on the information in this update. The
copyright for this update is owned by Weightmans LLP
2011.