Local government lawyers have been advised to audit their councils to identify services that could stray into Mazur territory and mitigate risks as the Solicitors Regulation Authority sought to reassure them ‘slips and trips’ will be ‘sympathetically listened to’.
Life after Mazur was the final session of a Lawyers in Local Government conference last Friday - hours after the SRA published eagerly-awaited guidance to help organisations stay compliant following the Court of Appeal’s ruling.
The Court of Appeal established earlier this year that an unauthorised person such as a legal executive, paralegal or trainee solicitor may lawfully perform any tasks within the scope of the conduct of litigation – but the delegation of tasks by an authorised person requires ‘proper direction, management supervision and control’.
Jonathan Peddie, SRA executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation, told the conference that ‘slips and trips and problems underlying and applying it will be sympathetically listened to’ - but the regulator will investigate those ‘exploiting loopholes’.
Katie Bray, head of legal at Essex County Council, told the conference that local authorities operate differently to traditional law firms. Essex embarked on an audit identifying where litigation might be happening, who was doing it and whether any exemptions applied.
Bray said: ‘That’s easy to do in legal services but more difficult to do in an organisation that employs 7,000 people. With local authorities, it’s not always about an authorised person delegating to a non-authorised person. We have services that carry out a whole area of work that could potentially and may, from time to time, stray into being a reserved activity.
‘We had to contact services outside of legal services where we knew quasi-legal work might be happening, such as SEND and debt recovery, and to find hidden legal work we might not know about.’ Traffic enforcement was another area of risk identified by attendees.
Bray said it was important to ask the right questions of services, such as what they would do if they received a claim for judicial review or what happens after they send a letter before action. ‘Clear escalation points’ should be identified for referring a matter to legal services. Review points, especially in routine cases, should also be diarised.
However, lawyers were told not to panic. ‘Audit and record where you are and what you are doing. Exemptions are definitely your friend,' Bray said.
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