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A clear advantage of a solicitor being judged by his peers in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal is that the solicitor members of the panel may consider matters against their knowledge and experience of life in and the practical realities of practice, and by that I mean REAL practice rather than the theoretical one that those working within the regulator (by definition) do not have current experience of, or perhaps do not have any practical experience of (the SRA employing so many paralegals these days).

If a non-solicitor Forensic Investigation Officer carries out an investigation, a non-solicitor SRA Supervisor ‘caseworks’ the matter to adjudication, an SRA-employed barrister decides to refer a solicitor to the SDT, and the prosecution case is advanced in the Tribunal by an SRA-employed or external barrister, the two solicitor members of the SDT panel might be the first current and practising solicitors to consider a Respondent solicitor’s conduct and view it with the perspective that life at the coalface allows. Those solicitor members of the SDT panel might even have personal experience of working in the particular area of law in the context of which the particular allegations of misconduct are brought.

The current constitution of the Tribunal clearly works: one lay member adds balance and perspective from the public to an assessment, review and judgment of a Respondent solicitor’s conduct by an expert Tribunal of his peers. Removing any more solicitors from the equation would quite realistically place Respondents in the position of having their alleged misconduct reviewed by only one practising solicitor in the whole of the investigation and disciplinary process.

The outcome of a decision of the SDT is usually serious, always has implications upon the career and reputation of a Respondent appearing before it, and is often career ending. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the public has called for change. The "perception" referred to by the SRA is entirely synthetic and created simply for the SRA to push its own agenda.

Nothing should be or needs to be done to change the body considering the fate of solicitor respondents from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal into a Disciplinary Tribunal for Solicitors.