Our beloved ruler never tires of lecturing attorneys and law firms on issues of transparency, but maybe sometimes it could attend the beam in its own eye. Such as when pulling a considerable coverage U-turn, for instance.
Back in April, the Solicitors Regulation Authority board, in its regular meeting, made a decision of interest to the profession it regulates. This was to fall a plan to inflict a #500,000 limitation on individual claims to the Compensation Fund. The decision was made following super-regulator the Legal Services Board read the riot act about’detriment to customers’.
You might have thought that the SRA would announce such a substantial change to the profession that pays its own wages. But no, it seems in the small print at the bottom of page two of the moments, published on the SRA’s site a month following the meeting. Beneath an item about’Minor alterations to the SQE Assessment Regulations’. And also a sign reading’Beware of the Leopard’. (We made the last one up.)
A couple of years back, when the SRA decided to bar journalists out of its ordinary board meetings, part of this bargain was a promise to brief the press on what went on. If it can not manage that, Obiter would like press access to the meetings , immediately.
