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It is a shame there is no one at the SRA who has been a solicitor for any length of time, and no one who is capable of learning from the mistakes of others, or checking from past records what happened before the three year qualification before practising on your own came in.

There were a number of cases where newly qualified solicitors set up on their own (usually wealthy, or from wealthy backgrounds, with good connections, ie clients who provided quality work and paid) but did not properly observe the professional rules. Two years' training in a large City firm does not provide the sort of experience in running a practice that a sole practitioner needs. The problems occurred because there was no one more senior in the firm who the inexperienced solicitor could turn to for advice.

It is a shame that the SRA are so incompetent that they propose to allow this to happen all over again. On the other hand their incompetence may lead to the SRA being abolished when the disaster happens - so the cloud might have a silver lining.