The deadline for solicitors to renew their practising certificates has passed with an estimated 4,500 applications still outstanding, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said today.

It revealed that a total of 26,764 bulk and single applications for renewal had been submitted by last Friday, of an estimated 32,611.

Of the 6,000 or so applications not submitted, around 1,500 have been created and are in process but have not yet been submitted, the SRA said.

This year was the second attempt to handle applications online through the ‘mySRA’ website. Alan Vallance, director of organisation services, said that ‘minor issues’ with the process had been identified and resolved quickly. ‘The relatively trouble-free process this time around demonstrates that the extensive engagement work that we did with the profession earlier in the year paid dividends.’

However he said that the volume of calls still coming in to the call centre implied that many solicitors had left renewal to the last minute. ‘Yesterday we had more than 1,000 calls to the contact centre about the renewals process with a number of those having forgotten their password from last year,’ Vallance said. ‘This implies that those individuals and firms have failed to even start renewing before the deadline.’

The SRA said it would start the revocation process for all those who have failed to renew their PC early in the new year.