More than 60,000 non-practising solicitors could be asked to complete an annual application if they want to stay on the roll – and pay for the privilege.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is consulting on plans to require individuals, most of who are retired or work in-house, to pay a fee of between £30 and £40 for the annual ’keeping of the roll exercise’.

The regulator says the change is needed in order to comply with data protection law. Anyone who does not complete the annual application to stay on the roll would no longer be able to call themselves a non-practising solicitor.

A total of 214,032 solicitors are currently on the roll; 60,192 classed as non-practising. The fee proposals would potentially bring in an extra £2.4m for the SRA if the same number of people choose to stay on the roll.

Anna Bradley, SRA chair, said: ‘Recent changes to data legislation mean that we have a legal obligation to ensure that all information held on the roll of solicitors is up to date and accurate.’  The 2018 Data Protection Act, which implemented the 2016 general data protection regulation (GDPR) in the UK, came into effect in May 2018. However the principle that computerised databases must be accurate and up to date was set by the first Data Protection Act in 1984. 

Until 2014, all solicitors without practising certificates were required to complete an application each year and pay an administration fee if they wished to remain on the roll. The SRA then decided not to continue updating the roll annually for non-practising solicitors as the process was seen as burdensome.

The regulator says new IT systems will make the process of maintaining personal records considerably less arduous for solicitors.

Bradley said: ‘We are aware that some non-practising solicitors might not have updated their details on our systems for some time and we are therefore introducing a requirement for annual updating of the roll for non-practising solictors. In the first year, we will be making extensive efforts to get in touch with those whose details may be out of date to make them aware of the changes.’

The roll confers a number of benefits on solicitors without practising certificates, including the right to vote in the Law Society Council elections, access to the Law Society hall and its library, and other discounts and benefits.

Consultation is open until 20 May. One person who has already made his views known is Gazette columnist and non-practising solicitor Joshua Rozenberg, who tweeted: ‘I have told @sra_solicitors that I shall remove my name from the roll if a fee is introduced.’

 

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