By Ashley Young-
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to sweep law firm websites for the second time this year, in a strong attempt to ensure compliance with transparency rules.
The move is being conducted by the regulator after several legal firms were caught last December being none compliant with expected standards.Today, a spokesperson from the SRA told The Eye Of Media.Com that :
”It is mandatory for all legal firms to be transparent about their operations including price transparency . Firms that flout these rules will be identified and face disciplinary action”, they said.
The SRA are determined to establish high and respectable standards across the board of law firms after a number of solicitors and barristers have been caught charging extortionate fees to clients. Several have been fined and punished for it, but the regulator wants to continue to keep law firms on their toes.
High standards are expected of all law firms, and the regulator is playing its role to ensure this.
As from November, the SRA will be adding further pressure on firms by making the digital logo created by the SRA compulsory for all firms with websites to display.
The logo was introduced to be used by firms voluntarily last year, but only 40% of firms adopted it on their websites.
Since December 2018, firms offering certain services have been required to give details of price and the people who will be working on those services. All legal firms are also expected to publish their complaints procedure and be displayed in a prominent place on websites.
A random sweep conducted this year of some 500 firms found that 17% of legal firms had not even attempted to comply with the new requirements. It found that 58% had made some effort but failed to satisfy what the SRA wanted. Just a quarter were found to be fully compliant.
At an annual compliance conference in Birmingham today, Richard Williams, a policy associate for the SRA, said that a second sweep will be carried out before the end of the year to test if firms have got the message.
‘We have now contacted those firms that [were not fully compliant] and given them a time frame to comply or pointed out what they may want to think about,’ said Williams. ‘The significant majority of those people contacted took steps very quickly to move into full compliance… this has the full gaze and full vision of the SRA at the moment.’
Hourly costs of solicitors in the Uk vary with their experience . Junior solicitors charge £111 per hour in the Uk, a fee that goes up to £130 if the solicitor is based in London. A solicitor with 4 years experience can charge up to £180 in the Uk, the figure being about £235 if they are based in London.
Solicitors with 8 years experience can charge £210 an hour, the figure being £300 in London. Although solicitor fees are already high, many have been known to increase their fees beyond their experience or credentials.