Middlesex Law Society

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is taking the initiative to ask solicitors with higher rights of audience to complete a questionnaire on the way in which they exercise their higher rights, to feed in to the proposed Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA).

The questionnaire, which has been designed in co-operation with key stakeholder groups - including the Law Society - is being sent out to all higher courts advocates with crime or crime/civil higher rights of audience this week (week commencing 7 November).

The questionnaire can be completed and returned by post to BMG Research using the reply paid envelope provided, or completed on-line at www.srasurvey.co.uk using the unique reference number in the covering letter. The closing date for responses is 21 November.

The responses will feed into further evidence gathering which is being conducted to find out more about the types of work solicitor advocates undertake, its nature and extent, as well as personal profile data which will be used in the analysis.

Yve Schelhaas, the SRA's Director of Education and Training, said: "The recent forum we held on QASA and the consultation on the proposals aired some key issues around the detail of the scheme. We have listened to the views expressed and as the main regulator of the solicitors' profession, we wanted to gather more evidence on solicitor advocates' work so that we can identify any factors that would tend to disadvantage them in relation to the Scheme.

"We hope that solicitors with higher rights will use the opportunity to feed back. The questionnaire should only take a matter of 15 minutes, and will provide some very valuable information for the Bar Standards Board, ILEX Professional Standards and ourselves to consider in formulating the design and structure of the final scheme."

Note to editors

The proposed scheme is designed on the basis of four levels. The levels are mapped to complexity of work - level one applies to advocacy in the magistrates' courts and level four applies to the most complex cases in the Crown Court. A single set of advocacy standards applies across the four levels. Levels are differentiated by performance indicators designed to define expectations of advocacy performance at each level.

2. Attend our Mass Lobby Event on Monday 31st October at 3pm (please see the ‘Instructions for the Mass Lobby Event’ document attached to this email.

3. Sign our petition, to register your opposition to ABS with the Coalition Government please click here:

This email provides an update on the Renewals exercise 2011-2012, including practising certificates, registrations for Registered European Lawyers (RELs) and Registered Foreign Lawyers (RFLs), firm recognitions, and sole practitioner authorisations.

The introduction of online applications represents a major step forward in the way in which the profession accesses our services. The ultimate benefits to be gained in terms of time and cost savings for the profession will be significant. More than 60,000 members of the profession have now successfully activated their online accounts. But we are sorry that many solicitors have experienced problems despite the testing that we carried out before launch. Although this is not unusual for projects of this kind we have been working round the clock to resolve these issues and are now encouraging those who had difficulties before to try again to activate their accounts.

We intend to begin the PC renewal exercise in the second half of October 2011. We will provide an update on our website www.sra.org.uk/mySRA on 14 October 2011. If our system testing does not give us sufficient confidence in the online process, we will operate the historic paper-based process as a fall-back. We are determined to avoid that if we can.

We ask that you make every effort to respond by the current deadline date of 31 October 2011. However, we will make appropriate adjustments to allow for the late start of the annual exercise. This will include assuring that practising certificates, registrations for RELs and RFLs, firm recognitions, and sole practitioner authorisations remain valid during any delay caused by the late start of the process.

We apologise for the obvious inconvenience that delays to the process will cause and thank you for your patience. Ultimately, this major IT improvement will enable us to reduce our administration costs significantly, and provide you with a better service.

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All comments and responses will be welcome. As your Council Member and chair of the Regulatory Affairs Board who respond to all SRA consultations Michael Garson will be pleased to receive views and comments.

MASS LOBBY DAY 31 OCTOBER + PLEASE GET YOUR MP TO SIGN OUR Early Day Motion (EDM)

As you may be aware the Sole Practitioners Group have launched a campaign against the introduction of Alternative Business Structures (ABS).

The introduction of ABS threatens our clients’ interests and ours, by placing at risk the independence of legal advice and driving sole practitioners out of the market.

SRA to seek more information about solicitor advocates’ working practices for QASA

Note to editors