We take our duty to the public extremely seriously. We promise to ASSURE our members’ clients and employers by setting and upholding standards that ensure they receive excellent legal and customer service. To help us achieve this we will carry out the following activities between 1 November 2018 and 31 October 2019.
We will enhance our role as an anti-money laundering supervisor by implementing the recommendations of the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS).
We will undertake a review of our existing procedures for investigating complaints and work with the Scottish Government and Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to agree changes to improve the statutory processes around legal complaints handling
We will review and improve the policies, processes and rules around the issuing of practising certificates and removal from the roll of solicitors.
We will seek final authorisation from the Scottish Government as an approved regulator of licensed legal service providers and commence our first licensing of new entities.
We will seek to enhance public protection around client funds by assessing best practice from other legal jurisdictions and reviewing the opportunity to offer new products to the profession around client accounts.
We will work with the Scottish Government and stakeholders, using the report of the independent review of legal services regulation to build a consensus in creating new, flexible and permissive legislation.
We will embed the processes and guidance around our new admission regulations and allow, subject to the Lord President’s approval, early admission by trainees.
We will undertake research with a view to enhancing specialist accreditation within the profession, creating new categories in response to demand from the membership in those areas. We will maintain specialist accreditation as a quality mark within the profession, using member feedback to identify where new categories are required.
We will agree changes to enhance the standards for accredited providers of the LLB law degree and Diploma in Professional Legal Practice.
We will introduce changes to the outcomes required from the current process to qualify as a solicitor and work towards a solicitor apprenticeship route to qualification.
