One of the foremost authorities on regulating solicitors has today condemned the SRA regime as ‘unfair’, ‘inefficient’ and crying out for root-and-branch reform.
Writing in today’s Gazette, Gregory Treverton-Jones KC accuses the regulator of being ‘tin-eared’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘generally unsympathetic to the realities of practice as a solicitor’. The SRA also takes far too long to deal with cases, he alleges.
Describing the unrepentant regulator’s ‘high-handed’ response to last year’s highly critical Axiom Ince report as ‘ill-advised’, he adds: ‘A little humility here and there would do it no harm, but unaccountability and arrogance tend to walk hand in hand.’
Treverton-Jones, long-time co-author of the Solicitor’s Handbook, goes on to describe the SRA’s now ‘draconian’ fining regime as a calculated ‘power grab’ from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
City solicitor Jamie Rafferty was told the SRA would have liked to fine him the ‘ludicrous’ sum of £50,000 for failing to provide a breath sample – when Rafferty had already been fined £3,846 in the magistrates’ court. Advised by Treverton-Jones to take his chances at the SDT, Rafferty was fined £2,500.
‘Had the SRA been given unlimited fining powers, it would have fined Rafferty around £50,000, a blatantly unfair penalty.’
Treverton-Jones’ proposed reforms include stripping the SRA of its statutory power to fine any individual or entity more than £2,500. This would ‘enable it to revert to its important role as promulgator of guidance to the profession’.
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