In the normal course of a working year for most families, there will be little, if any, contact with the legal world. We all hope and trust that should we find ourselves in a pickle, needing to either talk to a solicitor if we are in trouble ourselves, or because someone else causing us trouble and we need recourse to the legal side. Or we are moving house and need to hire as conveyancing solicitor. The rest of the time, we remain blissfully unaware of their activities. What we don’t want to find however is that when we do need their help and they do work or part work for us, but make a dog’s dinner of it, and maybe through negligence and bad practice, lose our case or just make it worse, then we have a system of redressing this. As with all public bodies, they have their own governing and regulatory body. It is robust and they have the overriding powers to call solicitors to book when they have taken the wrong path.
The sra also look at law firms who have connections with scam alerts that worry the ordinary consumer witless and give advisory information out there. They also train solicitors and law firms on how to understand the new laws coming on board soon regarding anti money laundering regulations. This covers all the processes, procedures and approaches firms who are in scope i.e. able to handle these enquiries, and what the practices need to have in place. The regulatory authority provides support and guidance materials so that the law firms know they are adhering to the laws on statute, on about to be so. It can give confidence to the average man in the street that there is a body to take on any law firms that fail to deliver to the highest standards.
