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This is how the SRA put the point in its Review of the Compensation Fund in 2009:

"Activities falling outside a solicitor’s 'usual business' can lead to a gap. The dishonesty of, or failure to account by, a solicitor must normally have occurred within the course of a solicitor/client transaction of a kind which is part of the usual business of a solicitor (currently guideline 1(f) (Annex C). This is similar to the concept of 'private practice' in relation to professional indemnity insurance."

"'Usual business' is generally meant to refer to any matter where there is a solicitor/client relationship and an underlying transaction. The Working Party has considered various options including:
• tightening the definition to include, for example, a list of generally accepted
matters;
• aligning the definition with the “private practice” definition applying in respect of indemnity, so as to exclude work if not done as part of private practice; and
• regarding the definition as a proper boundary and that the principle of 'caveat emptor' is a reasonable one to apply in circumstances where a client places money with a solicitor for investment in a 'too good to be true' investment
scheme.
A great deal of education of the profession has taken place in recent years, for example, in the context of money laundering about the dangers of transferring client funds where there is no genuine underlying transaction."