SRA Standards and Regulations

Disclosure and evidential requirements

Subject to rule 6.3 below, on making an application under any of the provisions set out in rule 1.1, you must disclose all matters, wherever they have taken place (including overseas), which are relevant to the SRA's assessment of your character and suitability, including, where practicable, any information set out in Table 4 which is relevant to the matter in question. On making an...

Assessment

When considering your character and suitability, the SRA will take into account the overriding need to: protect the public and the public interest; and maintain public trust and confidence in the solicitors' profession and in legal services provided by authorised persons. In doing so, the SRA will take into account the nature of your role, and your individual circumstances, on a case by case...

Execution of transactions

You must ensure that where you have agreed or decided in your discretion to effect a transaction, you must do so as soon as possible, unless you reasonably believe that it is in the client's best interests not to.

Application

The Overseas Rules apply to you: as a regulated individual who is practising overseas, in place of the SRA Principles and the SRA Code of Conduct for Individuals; or as a responsible authorised body in that you must ensure that your overseas practice and the individual managers, members and owners that are involved in the day to day or strategic management of your overseas practice, comply...

Dealings with client money

In all dealings you have with client money (overseas) you must: safeguard client money and assets entrusted to you; keep client money (overseas), separate from money which belongs to you; on receipt, pay client money (overseas) promptly into, and hold it in, an overseas client account, unless: to do so would conflict with your obligations under local law or regulation or with any obligation...

Overseas Principles

You act: in a way that upholds the constitutional principle of the rule of law and the proper administration of justice in England and Wales. in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the solicitors' profession of England and Wales and in legal services provided by authorised persons. with independence. with honesty. with integrity. in a way that encourages equality, diversity and...

Temporary emergency authorisation or approval

An application for temporary emergency authorisation may be made: within seven days of any change in the management or control of an authorised body which brings into being a new unauthorised body or practice; within 28 days of the death or incapacity of a sole practitioner by a solicitor or an REL who is: the sole practitioner's executor, personal representative, attorney under a lasting...

Conditions

The SRA may at any time, whether on grant of an application for authorisation or otherwise, impose such conditions on a body's authorisation (whether indefinite or for a specified period), where it considers it appropriate in the public interest to do so and in accordance with rules 3.2 and 3.3. The SRA may impose conditions under rule 3.1 if it is satisfied that the authorised body, or a...

Compliance officers

An authorised body must at all times have an individual who is designated as its COLP and an individual who is designated as its COFA, and whose designations the SRA has approved. Subject to rule 8.3, an individual who is designated under rule 8.1 must: be a manager or employee of the authorised body; consent to the designation; not be disqualified from acting as a HOLP or HOFA under section...

Requirements for recognised training

A period of recognised training must: unless regulation 4.2 applies, be of a duration of a total of at least two years full time, or equivalent; ensure that the trainee has applied and developed the skills as set out in the Practice Skills Standards; be appropriately supervised by solicitors and other individuals who have adequate legal knowledge and experience in the practice area they are...