By Anita Rice


The president of the Liverpool Law Society is canvassing 366 member firms on the quality of routine compliance visits by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), amid concerns they are 'heavy handed', the Gazette has learned.



Anne Heseltine, partner at Liverpool firm Morecrofts, has written to managing partners after receiving complaints about how visits by the SRA's Practice Standards Unit (PSU) are carried out.



She said: 'The message we are getting from some members is that the SRA is going in with a heavy-handed approach.'



While stressing that some reported positive experiences, Heseltine said others complained that the SRA would not say why they were visiting, what they were looking for and failed to explain the outcome of the visit.



'If you're not being told if you are complying, you can't fix anything,' she said.



'The message is that the SRA said it was going to be helpful and assist members to comply, but the approach being adopted is not consistent.'



Heseltine will write to the SRA summarising responses.



Concerns over the quality and selection criteria for PSU visits have also been voiced by other local law societies.



Christopher Clarke, president of the Bristol Law Society and partner at south-west firm Thatcher Hallam, said: 'I am absolutely behind the idea of proactively visiting firms to prevent problems arising but, given that there's a cost associated, I want these visits to be targeted where needed.'



He noted many members queried how PSU advisers - who are not practising solicitors - can be 'competent to check or advise on how practising solicitors should conduct themselves'.



Caroline Coates, president of the Birmingham Law Society and partner at Birmingham firm Buller Jeffries, said her members were discussing PSU visits.



Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said: 'There's never a week goes by when we don't receive a couple of letters... expressing concern about this'.



He said it would be wrong for the Society, having delegated regulation to the SRA, 'to intervene in individual cases, but if individual cases raising issues of wider significance' came to light there would be 'a genuine interest in... entering into a dialogue with the SRA'.



Karen Nokes, head of the PSU at the SRA, said a firm's experience of PSU visits varied according to their attitude to the visit and on what the advisers found.



She added: 'Our staff come from legal, quality assurance, regulatory and monitoring backgrounds and receive comprehensive and regular training. We do receive regular positive feedback... as well as evidence of fewer complaints following our visits.'