The meeting minutes will be published on our website in the usual way, but in the meantime, here are a few of the highlights from the 15 July session.
- Standalone Litigation Practice Rights: we received a report on our consultation on whether we should seek LSB approval to authorise Chartered Legal Executives to gain standalone litigation rights (rather than linked with advocacy rights as now). We noted that we had received 138 responses with overwhelming support (97%) in favour of the proposal. We therefore decided to launch next month a consultation on rule changes with a view to a formal application to the LSB in the autumn.
- Continuous Professional Development: uniquely among legal service regulators we sample a portion of the regulated community each year to reassure ourselves and consumers that the necessary CPD is being undertaken. We discussed the findings of the most recent exercise which showed high rates of compliance with just under 6% being non-compliant. We will consider further action to reduce non-compliance and publish the final report shortly.
- Operations: we had our regular series of reports on performance, as well as an-depth discussion with the Chair of the Admissions and Licensing Committee (Ann Reeves) on the Committee’s work. We were particularly pleased to see improvements in a number of areas, notably for instance a reduction in Practice Rights authorisation decisions to 11 weeks compared with 37 weeks in the same quarter last year. We briefly discussed the LSB enforcement action against the SRA following Axiom Ince and agreed we would revisit any lessons for us in the autumn.
- Practising Certificate Fee: We discussed the level at which we should fix the practising certificate fee for 2026 and agreed that CRL should limit its increase to below the inflation rate. A formal consultation will follow in the next couple of weeks.
- People: we noted that Alice Belcher was leaving the Board next month after completing two terms totalling 6 years and thanked her for her huge contribution. We also noted that Aaron Porter will be joining the Board to replace her as a Non-Executive Lay Director. Aaron brings lots of experience and knowledge of both higher education and governance and we are delighted to have him on board.
Our next full Board meeting is on 30 September 2025. If you would like to find out more, please access our website, read our Board papers or contact us.
