The SRA regulates everything you do as a solicitor, and your relationship with it is built on cooperation, honesty and timely reporting. In practice, knowing what you must tell the regulator, when, and about whom can be the difference between a manageable problem and a serious disciplinary one. These duties run alongside your day-to-day client work, and they apply to you personally as well as to your firm.
This lesson builds your understanding step by step:
- Cooperating with and Not Misleading the SRA — your duty to respond fully and honestly, and what counts as misleading, including by omission.
- Individual Notification Obligations — the criminal, regulatory and financial events you must personally report, and when.
- Duty to Report Serious Breaches — what makes a breach serious, whose breaches you must report, and what triggers the duty.
- Protecting Reporting — why no one can be prevented or punished for reporting, and why gagging clauses are void.
- Compliance Officers, Firms and Managers — the COLP and COFA roles, and where individual and firm responsibility lie.
- Insurance, Transparency and Client Information — the indemnity cover firms must hold and the information clients are entitled to before they commit.