You may have read in the press that the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) have had what might be called a ‘full and frank’ exchange of views. The trigger was the way in which the Law Society had established Lord Hunt’s review into the future of regulation.

What is going on? Well, it is only a year since the Legal Services Act became law. The Legal Services Board (LSB) has yet to assume its powers and new types of legal firms enabled by the act are still on the drawing board. This is a time of intense change. It is hardly surprising that there are sometimes tensions between Chancery Lane and the SRA as we work out our new relationships. The SRA was described in a recent Law Society Council meeting as a ‘delinquent teenager borrowing the family car’ – well, we have been called worse.

However, in one sense, the Law Society’s announcement of the Hunt review – with almost no consultation with us – was not a complete surprise. During the past few years there have been intense discussions between the SRA and the Law Society about what constitutes independent regulation.

The clear position of the SRA board is that if the regulation of the solicitors’ profession is to be credible in the eyes of the public, it must be genuinely independent of representative pressures.

This will be one of the first questions to be decided by the LSB once it formally comes into being on 1 January 2009. Section 30 of the Legal Services Act requires it to make rules which create adequate separation of the various professional bodies’ representative and regulatory functions.

But what precisely do we mean by independence? What is necessary to remove the risk of improper interference?

For the SRA, the acid test will be whether the arrangements are likely to convince our various stakeholders that there is genuine separation. This means that the representative Law Society must, save in extreme circumstances, resist the temptation to act in a regulatory or intrusive supervisory role. Unless they do, Parliament, the consumer lobby and the media – to name a few – will find it hard to believe that the SRA regulates in the public interest. We need to bury for ever the damaging perception that lawyers are regulated by lawyers purely for the benefit of lawyers. Failure to do so will only store up trouble for the future.

We suggest that the LSB should consider two main things. First, whether the e-governance arrangements of the regulators are strong enough to resist improper pressure or interference. Second, whether the regulator’s relationships with the professional bodies will ensure that they have the facilities they need to deliver effectively.

The LSB may, for instance, think it should make a rule dealing with the selection of the regulator’s board members. The public may find it hard to see how a system in which appointments to the regulatory body are made by the representative body can be independent.

However, none of this means that we are set on brushing aside the views of the Law Society or the profession. On the contrary, the SRA considers that engaging with the profession is crucial to successful regulation, and we continue to regard the representative Law Society as our most important consultee. Its views are invaluable and have already led to significant changes to our policy proposals. We expect to be held robustly to account for our policies and performance. And our frequent roadshows across the country enable us to hear at first hand the views of practitioners, often delivering first-class legal services in difficult circumstances.

Finally, back to Lord Hunt’s review. Whatever our reservations about its prompting and timing, we will be glad to provide all the assistance we can. Our evidence to Lord Hunt will be published.

Various statements have given the impression that Lord Hunt will be focussing particularly on the provision of legal services by bigger firms to ‘sophisticated’ corporate clients.

The SRA recognises that this activity is crucial to the UK’s position in the global legal market. We acknowledge that, for various reasons, the type and degree of regulatory risk and therefore response in this segment of the legal marketplace is liable to differ from that in others.

The SRA’s approach to the regulation of bigger firms is, and will continue to be, consistent with the principles of good regulation: we should act only when necessary; we should seek to encourage compliance rather than wait for non-compliance; rules and standards should be implemented fairly; and we should focus on the problems and keep side-effects to a minimum. We are already piloting approaches to the regulation of bigger firms with a number of volunteers. While the way in which we regulate big and small firms may require different approaches, ultimately the same ethical standards must apply and we must regulate all sectors fairly.

And for the avoidance of doubt I want to stress one other thing – the SRA will regulate these firms and all others with the public interest foremost.

Peter Williamson is chairman of the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority