The
Solicitors Regulation Authority (
SRA) was launched on 29 January 2007. It is the regulatory body for more than 120,000 solicitors in
England and WalesEngland and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
. Its purpose is
"to set, promote and secure in the public interest standards of behaviour and professional performance necessary to ensure that clients receive a good service and that the rule of law is upheld" .
Discussion
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Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may in this respect be compared to those angels whom the scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings.
A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, Book 1, Section 4, p.225
Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.
Introduction to Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers by Richard Rorty, Volume 3, 1998.
The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution, which idealism palms off as the totality of being.
Our Knowledge of the External World by Bertrand Russell
The true function of logic,... as applied to matters of experience,... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is.
Our Knowledge of the External World by Bertrand Russell
Science does not know its debt to imagination.
Poetry and Imagination by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1872.
Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.
Introduction to Men at War by Ernest Hemingway, 1942.
There is no life I knowthat compares to pure imaginationLiving there you'll be freeif you truly wish to be
Pure Imagination|Pure Imagination by Gene Wilder, 1971.
Impossibility is only the figment of an insufficient imagination.
The Song Of Sin by Phil Duncan, 1998.
The
Solicitors Regulation Authority (
SRA) was launched on 29 January 2007. It is the regulatory body for more than 120,000 solicitors in
England and WalesEngland and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
. Its purpose is
"to set, promote and secure in the public interest standards of behaviour and professional performance necessary to ensure that clients receive a good service and that the rule of law is upheld" .
It was previously known as the Law Society Regulation Board, but changed its name to emphasise its independence; it remains part of the
Law Society of England and WalesThe Law Society is the professional association that represents the solicitors' profession in England and Wales. It provides services and support to practising and training solicitors as well as serving as a sounding board for law reform. Members of the Society are often consulted when important...
due to administrative and legal reasons, but operates separately from it.
Activities
The Law Society delegated regulatory powers to the SRA and charged it to exercise those functions independently and in the public interest. This was done following a report by Sir David Clementi of all legal services in England and Wales, which recommended that professional bodies holding both regulatory and representative responsibilities should separate those roles.
(see
Report of the Review of the Regulatory Framework for Legal Services in England and Wales).
Those functions include, but are not limited to: setting down minimum academic and behavioural standards for entry into the profession and ensuring continued compliance with these standards.; the issue of yearly Practising Certificates; the investigation of allegations of a failure to meet the set behavioural standards, and breaches of the Code of Conduct and other rules; intervention into a solicitor's firm in the public interest.
The SRA is headed by
Antony Townsend (Chief Executive), who reports to the
SRA Board chaired by Charles Plant.
History
In July 2011 the SRA announced that it would be launching a formal inquiry into the role played by solicitors in the News International phone hacking scandal. The SRA confirmed that its investigation would consider the concerns of Labour MP
Tom WatsonThomas Anthony Watson is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for West Bromwich East since 2001. Watson was a Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office from 2008 to 2009...
, who had called upon the SRA to investigate News International's former legal adviser
Harbottle & LewisHarbottle & Lewis is a law firm based in London, United Kingdom which advises clients across the media, communications and entertainment industries....
.