Solicitors’ regulator responds

But could it do more to prevent high-profile collapses?

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has responded to concerns that it could do more to predict and perhaps prevent the collapse of large law firms. It says its priority is to ensure that its assessment and enforcement processes are risk-based, evidence-led and focused on protecting the public.

PM Law, Sheffield, where work has been halted since February

Readers may remember that I reported last month on research by Blind Justice UK, a small charity that seeks to promote sound administration of the law. It examined recent cases that were closed at the assessment stage to see whether there were factors that might identify a future high-profile collapse.

The charity put its concerns to the regulator in an open letter 17 May. It said:

We have analysed the SRA’s own published enforcement data for 2023/24 and identified a significant accountability gap at the earliest stage of the regulatory process.

The core finding is this: in 2023/24, the SRA received 11,852 reports about solicitors and closed 8,317 before any investigation began. Only approximately 510 led to a regulatory finding, a net finding rate of around 4.3%. Since 2017/18, the proportion of reports referred for investigation has fallen from around 53% to around 15%. The volume of incoming reports has barely changed.

These figures alone do not prove that the SRA is closing reports it should be investigating. The concern is narrower and more serious: the SRA does not publish enough data to allow the public, the profession, parliament, or the Legal Services Board to test whether assessment-stage closures are safe.

The regulator replied to Blind Justice UK last Friday. It said:

We will be reviewing the application of our assessment threshold test this year to reflect our risk appetite and ensure the consistent application of our enforcement strategy. We are also developing a data and risk programme to further improve our capacity and capability to analyse large volumes of data quickly, identify emerging patterns across legal firms and prevent regulatory issues from escalating.

As part of this work, we will also be actively considering how best to improve the accessibility and usefulness of our published data at all stages of this process.

These changes are set against a backdrop of a significant rise in the number of misconduct reports we receive. Whilst your letter states that the volume of reports has barely changed, our experience shows that between November 2022 and October 2025, for example, there was a 45% increase in the number of reports we assessed, rising from 11,378 to 16,499.

Blind Justice UK said yesterday that this sharpened its point: more misconduct reports were arriving but fewer were being investigated. On the regulator’s own figures, the number of reports it assessed rose by more than 5,000 between November 2022 and October 2025. Yet the number referred for investigation has fallen: around 1,763 in 2023/24, down from around 6,027 in 2017/18 with no explanation given.

Edward Romain, founder and chief executive of Blind Justice UK, said:

We asked the SRA to publish the data behind its assessment-stage decisions. It has answered by declining to publish and by relying on a figure it has not published and that no one can verify. A regulator cannot answer a concern about transparency by being less than transparent.