CityMotoring Could solicitors be regulated as easily as cars?


There are annual rituals associated with car ownership. Every motorist knows that a car can only be lawfully driven in the U.K. if properly taxed and insured. In addition, the familiar vehicle tax disc has to be displayed on every car on a public road. The disc shows a specific expiry date by when a further payment of tax has to be made.


Ronnie Fox, Past Master,


Motoring Correspondent


*Past Master Ronnie Fox is the Motoring Correspondent of City Solicitor. Mark Marriott undertook research on which parts of this article are based.


Each year, about three weeks before the expiry date (for my car, 30 September) I receive a form from the DVLA. I can choose between sending off the completed form manually with a cheque and providing the information and payment on-line. Insuring the car is only slightly more complicated. My motor insurance certificate clearly says that when the period expires (in my case, 23.59 on 31 December). About three weeks before the expiry date, I receive a 3 page renewal offer from my insurers requiring a series of declarations and a payment; I can choose to fill in the form by hand and send it to the insurers by post with a payment or to provide the declarations and payment over the telephone.


These rituals are important and serious. Vehicle excise duty raises over £5bn annually. People are killed in motor accidents. These rituals are straightforward and quick – perhaps a couple of hours each year.


Solicitors have to go through far more elaborate rituals to practise lawfully. In England and Wales every solicitor in practice requires a certificate issued by the SRA. Every firm of solicitors needs to be authorised by the SRA and insured by an approved insurer against negligence claims. Every authorised firm must appoint a COLP and a COFA approved by the SRA.


In theory practising certificates and authorisations are granted for a year and subject to renewal on 31 October. In 2012 for


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the first time law firms were also required to nominate a COLP and a COFA. The deadline for nomination was 31 July 2012, well in advance of the renewal date. In the event the practising certificate and authorisation renewal process in 2012 did not begin until 1 November. Many practising certificates and authorisations were not issued by the SRA until the last few days of December; many COLP’s and COFA’s were not approved until January 2013. The result was months of stress and uncertainty for thousands of solicitors.


Renewing professional indemnity insurance has become a major headache. The amount of information which insurers seek from solicitors increases every year: My firm’s proposal form for 2012/13 together with the attachments covered over 50 pages. Each insurer apparently insists on completion of its own form: Law Society efforts to persuade PI insurers all to adopt the same proposal form (which would make it easier for solicitors to obtain competitive quotes) appear to have been fruitless.


It gets worse. When the mutual scheme administered by the Law Society was replaced by a system of approved insurers, concerns were expressed that insurance companies would decide whether a solicitor would be able to practise. That concern gave rise to the creation of the Assigned Risks Pool which provided PI cover to solicitors experiencing difficulty in obtaining cover in the commercial insurance market. Now the Assigned Risks Pool is to be abolished. The concerns expressed years ago have proved well-founded.


(Cont. on page 15)


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