Who’d want to regulate lawyers, the most cussed and querulous constituency in British business life? I can’t imagine watchdogs are often sought out at parties – not by the regulated community, not by laypersons. Or not because people are pleased to see them, anyway.
Paul Philip has had his detractors, but demonstrated impressive staying power – over 10 years as SRA CEO – before deciding to retire.
I can’t see Philip’s marathon stint ever being surpassed. The Legal Services Board has lost both its chair and chief executive in short order. The latter announced his departure ‘for personal reasons’ just days after a withering attack on his organisation by Bar Standards Board chair Kathryn Stone. She’s leaving too.
Into this maelstrom steps Sarah Rapson. The former Whitehall high-flier will leave her position as executive director of supervision at the Financial Reporting Council to succeed Philip later this year.
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Superintending beancounters is a tad less fraught, so Rapson will need a thick skin. Not least among her tasks will be to shore up morale among staffers after the mauling the SRA suffered over Axiom Ince – with a separate report into SSB Law still to come.
Rapson’s in-tray is also piled up with potential reforms affecting solicitors that would be bitterly opposed. Some are encompassed by the Consumer Protection Review; most notably, what to do about the infusions of interest on client money shoring up law firm balance sheets.
Buried by over 400 written responses to the review consultation, the regulator has also welcomed a ‘wealth of insights’ via roundtables, focus groups and research. Another consultation on specifics will follow, with the SRA presently making emollient noises about ‘stimulating debate and generating intelligence to inform the way forward’.
A propos interest on client money, the only hard data comes via the Law Society’s financial benchmarking survey, which is largely focused on the mid-market. As what looks like being another bumper results season gets under way, I feel bound to wonder idly about the unquantified bounty doubtless being received from the same source by the ‘elite’ London firms.
For analysts and journalists alike, comparing the underlying profitability of the capital’s legal behemoths has never been straightforward. As interest rates have risen, it has become nigh-on impossible.
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