Elizabeth Muirhead’s letter questions the need for firms to change their letterheads, websites and emails to say ‘authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority’ from 6 October, when our new Handbook and Code of Conduct come into effect.

The reason for the change is to signal to clients and consumers generally that all firms are not simply regulated by the SRA, but have been subject to an authorisation process to enable them to enter the regulated community and provide legal services to the public.

We have given firms fair warning of this – it is set out in Outcome 8.5 of the new Code of Conduct, which we published nearly six months ago, and which was subject to consultation beforehand. We have also sent reminders to individuals and firms.We appreciate that while websites, email footers and computer templates are relatively straightforward to change, firms may have stocks of pre-printed headed paper that they do not want to waste.

Therefore, we are happy for firms to use these old stocks and change their headed paper as soon as practicable in the next few months.

Samantha Barrass, executive director, supervision, risk and standards, Solicitors Regulation Authority