The sole practitioner route has been a well-established path for many years now, allowing solicitors to be self-employed and have the independence of running their own law firm. This route involves the practice of the sole practitioner being authorised by us as a recognised sole practice.
However, self-employment opportunities expanded further in November 2019 when it became possible for solicitors to provide legal services on a freelance basis. Requirements for that model of work are described in our guidance.
Alongside this, legal consultancy work continues to grow in popularity in many areas of the legal services market, with solicitors providing legal services to clients on a consultancy basis through commercial relationships with law firms, or through service companies that provide infrastructure and support them to contract with different law firms. These flexible approaches to legal service delivery in turn lead to new opportunities for sole practitioners and their businesses to engage with legal consultants, and to explore different ways to work with them to provide legal services to clients.
An important consideration here is supervision. All solicitors must meet the regulatory requirements set out in the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs, regardless of their chosen business model or approach to legal service delivery. Paragraph 3.5 of the Code requires solicitors who are supervising or managing others providing legal services to be personally responsible for the work they are supervising, and to effectively oversee the work being done for clients.
Sole practitioners must also meet the requirements of the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms, and in particular paragraph 4.4 which requires you to have an effective system for supervising clients’ matters.
Sole practitioners might choose to meet the supervision requirements in different ways, according to their chosen business model, and to the individuals that they may contract or employ directly to support their delivery of legal services. Supervision arrangements should be designed in ways that ensure a good standard of service is achieved for clients, and in line with the other requirements set down in both Codes – such as paragraph 3.2 of the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs that requires that “You ensure that the service you provide to clients is competent and delivered in a timely manner”.
In situations where a sole practitioner wishes to use a legal consultant to help deliver legal services to their clients, the sole practitioner must make sure they fulfil the supervision requirements. In each case the approach is dependent on the circumstances.
For example, if a sole practitioner brings a freelance solicitor into their firm (regardless of the contracted terms) to provide legal services to the firm’s clients, the sole practitioner remains responsible for supervising the work being done – in the same way that they are if legal work is being completed by a paralegal or other employee. The same responsibility applies to situations where a sole practitioner brings any other legal consultant into their firm to carry out legal work for the firm’s clients.
In other situations, a sole practitioner might agree with a client that instead their legal work will be referred in its entirety to another solicitor working as a legal consultant who will then take over responsibility for delivering the service. That is a referral that results in the client relationship being passed over to the legal consultant, and the sole practitioner in that scenario is not required to supervise the legal work being completed.
The solicitor working as the legal consultant is then responsible for meeting the duties to the client that are required by the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs.
If you want to discuss your supervision arrangements in situations like these, or situations where you might be considering working with legal consultants, you can contact the SRA’s professional ethics helpline.
You can read our Guidance for more information about SRA-regulated freelance solicitors, and there is also guidance on the freelancer model available from the Law Society.