Who may provide legal services in England and Wales, who regulates them, and the framework of titles, authorisation and discipline that holds the profession together.
Behind every rule of professional conduct sits a statutory structure deciding who can lawfully do legal work at all. This chapter starts with the split profession and its regulators — the Legal Services Board, the Law Society and the SRA — and the regulatory objectives they must pursue. It then turns to the six reserved legal activities, the criminal consequence of carrying them on without permission, and the two-stage test separating authorised persons from exempt ones, before tracing the route to practising as a solicitor: admission, practising certificates, higher rights and the firms through which a solicitor may work. It closes with the seven SRA Principles and the machinery of enforcement, from SRA sanctions and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to the Legal Ombudsman's remedies for poor service.
