Two months on from the Law Society practice note entitled “Mazur and the conduct of litigation”, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has published its updated guidance on the supervision of unauthorised staff carrying out litigation.
In this short article, Benjamin Fowler summarises the core points within the SRA’s guidance note “Effective supervision – Guidance”.
By way of reminder, the Court of Appeal in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2026] EWCA Civ 369 confirmed that an unauthorised individual can (under Schedule 2, paragraph 4(1) of the Legal Services Act 2007) carry out tasks that amount to the conduct of litigation for and on behalf of an authorised person, but the authorised person retains responsibility for the tasks conducted by an unauthorised person. What constitutes proper management supervision and control by the authorised person was said to be a matter for regulators. The Court specified that what is appropriate supervision in a given case will depend upon the circumstances; as such, it is perhaps unsurprising that it has taken two and half months from the Court of Appeal’s decision for the SRA to produce this revised guidance.
The format of the Guidance
The SRA’s new guidance sets out four ‘key themes’; the relevant regulatory requirements; detailed guidance on specific categories of activity; and guidance on SRA enforcement. An Annex addresses the definition of the conduct of litigation.
Key themes
The ‘key themes’ are:
- The need for supervision: this reinforces the central point that the regulated individual and firm is accountable for the actions of unauthorised individuals.
- Appropriate supervision arrangements: emphasising that there is no single model of supervision, and legal services providers must use a ‘risk-based approach’ on deciding what is appropriate in a particular circumstance; the Guidance sets out factors to take into account, which include:
- What is at stake (eg risk of loss of life or liberty)
- Where the work sits on a spectrum from high degree of judgment to purely administrative work
- The nature of the client, the supervised person (their experience and workload) and the supervisor’s capacity
- Recourse to alternative sources of assistance (other colleagues, guidance or standardised processes).
- Conducting supervision: supervisors must have oversight, be available to support the person doing the work, and be able to provide robust assurance that legal/regulatory requirements are being met.
- Ensuring supervision is effective: not only should there be a system of supervision, but it must also be put into effect. This is the central premise of the Guidance in a nutshell.
Detailed guidance
Given that there is no one-size-fits-all model of supervision, the SRA Guidance is necessarily wide-ranging and emphasises the range of options available to firms. For example:
- Supervisors do not need to be partners or line managers; the important aspect of the role is the exercise of professional judgment to ensure they are able to carry out competent supervision.
- When supervisors should check work will depend upon the circumstances. For example, in transactional work, the key stage may only be the final step; in more complex work (such as conduct of a claim) focus will be required throughout the matter.
- Supervision can be done remotely or face-to-face, but what is more suitable is dependent upon the nature of the work and the risks involved. Working patterns (including remote, hybrid working and flexible patterns) are a specific risk factor to take into account; suggestions for managing remote working are included.
Specific areas of practice are addressed, with examples of good practice provided following feedback from regulated firms. The sections on specific reserved legal activities such as the conduct of litigation, giving examples of delegation and supervision arrangements, addressing:
- How and when tasks can be delegated to unauthorised people, by reference to clear processes, systems and controls (which can be defined within a case management system) and clear (not assumed) acts of delegation.
- How the authorised person can demonstrate responsibility and the direction of the process, by ensuring that the system for delegation is clearly articulated and established in advance; and audit and quality assurance measures are in place.
Artificial intelligence
Supervision and AI is addressed briefly (this is below a sub-heading which suggests it is a sub-heading of legal aid work; because the sub-headings vary in size and are un-numbered, it is difficult at times to see where they belong). The guidance is that firms should consider what effective supervision of AI looks like in practice, ensuring that the output is subjected to appropriate human review, scrutiny and professional judgment.
More detail as to how various regulators are dealing with AI can be found at 4 New Square’s AI Hub.
Enforcement
The section on enforcement sets out six case studies, two of which (conveyancing and case management) are based upon investigations which resulted in fines imposed by the SDT and the remainder of which are imagined situations based on four categories of concern – who is responsible; systems and controls; and two on the performance of high-volume work. These make the following key points:
- The fact a three-year PQE supervisor is considerably less experienced that the unauthorised people they are appointed to supervise is not the sole relevant factor to determine the adequacy of supervision. If there are appropriate systems and controls in place and a clear focus on the clarity of roles, this can amount to a compliant arrangement.
- A personal injury firm consisting of one solicitor supervising three legal executives who themselves manage five paralegals can be a compliant system of supervision. The solicitor is responsible for and must determine the scope of delegation of any task amounting to the conduct of litigation, even if the day-to-day work is carried out by the legal executives. What the SRA will require is clear systems and controls with rules about what is delegated to whom; how the legal executives will oversee the process and ensure roles are followed; and that the solicitor actively reviews management information about the caseloads. The key is that the solicitor drafts the precedents and processes and oversees the process – it is not necessary for them to actively manage every unauthorised individual.
- If review is carried out by sample (in the case of high-volume work), the sample must provide sufficient assurance that the quality of work across the full range of matters handled is satisfactory, and that risks of detriment to clients are identified and addressed in a timely way.
Conclusion
The SRA Guidance has been reviewed by a number of organisations including the Law Society, CILEX, the Legal Aid agency and government departments. It provides a number of links to other guidance, both internal within the SRA and from other sources. The SRA has said that it plans to work with stakeholders to expand the pool of case studies.
Given the Court of Appeal’s conclusion in Mazur that appropriate supervision is case-dependent, the SRA’s guidance is necessarily thematic, identifying risk factors without laying down hard and fast rules. Ultimately, what is appropriate in a given case will depend upon the circumstances, and will invariably require the firm/authorised person to demonstrate that the systems and controls in place are deliberately planned and conceived and fully observed in practice.
© Benjamin Fowler, 4 New Square Chambers, June 2026
This article is not intended as a substitute for legal advice. Advice about a given set of facts should always be taken.
