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Is a compliance plan a COLP’s need-to-have or simply a nice-to-have and, more to the point, what on earth is a compliance plan? Compliance plans are the Emperor’s New Clothes of the SRA regulatory regime. Everyone’s talking about them, but no-one wants to admit they can’t see them and they don’t know what they are. There’s a good reason for this – compliance plan requirements are virtually invisible in the SRA Handbook. Allison Wooddisse explains.

Our latest news round-up reports on a barrister jailed after stealing £72,500 from his chambers, more problems with the SRA’s online PC renewal system, surveys on fixed fees and compliance, and the appeal court upholding a ruling against a firm innocently caught up in mortgage fraud.

Rachel Khiara, formerly a partner at national firm Addleshaw Goddard, has launched her own niche boutique specialising in advising law firms, alternative business structures and other advisers on the new regulatory regime in the legal sector.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is formulating a whistleblowers’ charter and leniency scheme for those who reveal misconduct at law firms and alternative business structures, Legal Futures can report. Co-operation will be accepted as mitigation.

Clients are expressing much more concern about the way the largest UK law firms are managing risk than before – and than the firms’ own lawyers, a survey has found. While just 21% of lawyers perceived risk management to be a “key priority”, 47% of clients thought it was.