We have today (6 August) been required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to provide detailed financial information, for no other reason than that our income consists of legal aid.

The SRA has confirmed that it has sent many such emails today, possibly numbering in the thousands.

The email provides a link to the SRA website, where there is a form to be filled in, giving various financial details, such as bank balance variations over the past three months, overdraft facility details, personal remuneration and so on.

Unfortunately, the form cannot be completed as it is password-protected. The SRA has not provided the password.

I am pleased to offer a prize of £20 to the first person successfully to guess the omitted password, and hence be the first to comply with the information request, the status of which we are told is in accordance with ‘our powers under chapter 10 of the SRA Code of Conduct 2011, specifically outcomes 10.8 and 10.9, and rule 31 of the SRA Accounts Rules 2011’.

David Taylor, dtp-law, Liverpool