The Solicitors Regulation Authority had no real choice but to press on with its reforms of the practising certificate fee this week, under growing pressure from solicitors in the employed sector who now make up a meaty 26% of the profession.

But there is a suspicion among firms in the Square Mile that the new fee structure will amount to a raid on City pockets, a concern shared by some members of the SRA board.

In fact, that is not the case. The turnover bands have been specifically engineered so as to spread the cost of regulation across sole practitioners, small, medium-sized and large firms in as close a proportion as possible to the status quo, but taking out the employed sector. No one section of private practice will suddenly be paying more than the rest. Indeed, as it happens, the current draft of the bands – which may still be revised before they are approved by the board next month – would mean that four of the five top City firms will actually be paying less than they do now.

Arguably, what poses a greater problem for the SRA is how to deal with some large and highly efficient legal aid firms. These have high turnover but relatively low actual profit, a situation that could lead to them being landed with an unfairly high charge. Ensuring those firms pay the right level of fee for regulation will be no easy task.