Written by Regulatory accountability
A report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority is not a civil claim and it is not a personal remedy route. It is a regulatory gateway. That distinction matters because the SRA does not exist to compensate complainants or resolve every private dispute, but it does exist to decide whether the information reported to it raises serious or repeated conduct concerns. This article uses one report involving Burnetts Solicitors as a public-interest case study in how conflict, confidentiality and regulatory reasoning should be tested.
Publication snapshot
The public-confidence issue
The concern described in the source draft is that Burnetts Solicitors had previously drafted the complainant's will, in which his business was treated as an important inheritance asset, and later acted for his landlord in a dispute affecting the premises from which that business operated. The complainant says he reported that sequence to the SRA as a conflict and conduct concern, but the SRA concluded that no further regulatory action was required.
The article does not present the complainant's allegations as findings. The public-interest question is narrower: where a former-client relationship, a will file, a later adverse instruction, alleged use of premises as leverage and alleged misleading conduct are put before the regulator, what reasoning should the SRA be expected to show before closing the report?
Why the SRA route matters
The SRA regulates solicitors and SRA-regulated firms. It is concerned with professional standards, regulatory risk and the public interest. It is not usually the right route for compensation, private legal advice, professional negligence damages or the resolution of a landlord and tenant dispute. That boundary is important because a report can be mishandled in two different ways: it can be treated as a private dispute when it raises regulatory conduct issues, or it can be treated as a regulatory complaint when the real remedy needed is civil.
The source draft says the complainant instructed Burnetts in early 2022 to prepare his will. His concern was that his business should be protected as an inheritance asset for his children. He then says Burnetts later represented his landlord in a dispute affecting the business premises and that the dispute led to his exclusion from the premises. The draft describes that as a clear conflict of interest and criticises the SRA for failing to act.
The safer and stronger formulation is that the report raised a conflict and confidentiality question that required structured regulatory analysis. The SRA did not need to accept every allegation. It did need to identify the correct issue: whether the earlier will retainer, the information held by the firm, the later adverse instruction and the alleged conduct in the landlord dispute crossed the threshold for regulatory concern.
That is where public confidence is engaged. A regulator can decide not to investigate. But where it does so, especially after a report involving a former client and alleged adverse work, the explanation must show that the right regulatory questions were understood.
The conflict question
The complaint should not be reduced to a slogan that the firm had a conflict. Conflict analysis is more precise than that. The first question is whether Burnetts were still acting for the complainant at the relevant time. The second is whether, even if the complainant was a former client, the firm held confidential information material to the landlord dispute. The third is whether the firm had taken effective measures or obtained informed consent where the regulatory framework required it.
The will retainer matters because will preparation is a relationship in which personal, family, financial and asset information may be obtained. If the business, its premises, its value, its vulnerabilities or its succession purpose were discussed in that retainer, those facts may be relevant to any later assessment of confidential information. The existence of a former retainer does not automatically prohibit all later adverse work. But it does require a disciplined conflict and confidentiality assessment.
Was there a current retainer?
The client care letter, will file, final bill and closing correspondence should identify whether the will matter had ended and on what terms.
Was there material confidential information?
The key question is whether the firm held information from the will retainer that was material to the landlord dispute or the business premises.
Was the adverse interest identified?
The report needed to distinguish a general former-client concern from a specific adverse-interest concern connected to the same business asset.
What did the conflict check show?
A proper regulatory assessment should ask whether the firm recorded, reviewed and justified its decision to accept the landlord instruction.
This is the discipline the report required. It avoids overstatement while keeping the regulatory concern intact. A complainant does not need to prove the whole civil dispute to raise a proper question about whether a former client relationship and later adverse instruction were adequately assessed.
What the SRA had to separate
The source draft combines several strands: the will retainer, the alleged conflict, the landlord dispute, alleged misrepresentations, alleged failure to follow procedural requirements, alleged creation of a forfeiture position, alleged pressure after exclusion from the premises, and alleged harm to the business. Those allegations may overlap factually, but they do not all belong to the same legal route.
The SRA route is concerned with serious or repeated breaches of professional standards. The court route may be needed for issues such as forfeiture, exclusion from premises, rent, unjust enrichment, business loss, causation or damages. The Legal Ombudsman route may be relevant to service complaints where the firm acted for the complainant. A professional negligence route may be needed if the alleged wrong is bad advice or loss caused by legal service.
Regulatory conduct
Conflict, confidentiality, misleading conduct, taking unfair advantage and cooperation with the regulator are SRA-facing issues if the evidence meets the threshold.
Civil dispute
Lockout, forfeiture, rent, possession, loss of stock, business interruption and unjust enrichment may require court analysis and legal advice.
Service complaint
Client care, complaint handling, file closure, communication and service quality may sit with the firm first and then the Legal Ombudsman if eligible.
Review of the SRA process
If the concern is how the SRA handled the report, the service-complaint and independent-review route may become relevant.
The SRA did not have to resolve every strand. But it did need to avoid using the existence of civil elements as a reason to miss the regulatory elements. A mixed dispute still requires a route map.
The reasoning gap
The concern in the source draft is that the SRA's investigation was slow, superficial and failed to recognise what the complainant saw as an obvious conflict. Those are serious criticisms. The article therefore narrows the point to what can be tested publicly: did the SRA's response show a structured assessment of the report?
A weak answer
The regulator treats the matter as a private landlord and tenant dispute and closes the report without visibly analysing conflict, confidentiality or former-client risk.
A disciplined answer
The regulator separates civil issues from regulatory issues, identifies the standards engaged and explains whether the evidence meets the assessment threshold.
An overreaching answer
The regulator purports to decide disputed civil liability or business loss without the disclosure, pleadings, witness evidence and court process needed for that task.
The middle course is the proper one. The SRA does not have to decide whether the alleged lockout was unlawful, whether forfeiture was valid, or whether the landlord was unjustly enriched. But it can and should decide whether the solicitor conduct reported to it raises a regulatory question. If the answer is no, the reasoning should make clear why.
The accountability test
A serious regulatory report should be capable of producing a reasoned answer to practical questions. Those questions do not assume that Burnetts acted wrongly. They test whether the regulator engaged with the report at the right level.
What was the former client relationship?
The will retainer, its scope and its closure needed to be identified before the later adverse instruction could be assessed.
What information was material?
The report needed analysis of whether the firm held confidential information from the will work that mattered to the landlord dispute.
What conduct was alleged?
Allegations about misleading statements, procedural conduct and pressure should have been separated from the private dispute and assessed against SRA standards where relevant.
What threshold was applied?
The complainant should be able to understand whether the SRA treated the matter as unsupported, outside remit, below threshold or unsuitable for investigation for another reason.
That is the accountability test. A regulator may close a report, but it should not leave the complainant guessing whether the central issue was rejected, misunderstood, redirected or never examined.
The reform point
The reform point is not that every report to the SRA should become an investigation. That would be unrealistic and contrary to a threshold-based regulatory system. The reform point is that reports involving former-client confidentiality, adverse interests and alleged misuse of legal process need better issue discipline.
First, the SRA should make clear whether it is declining to investigate because the evidence is insufficient, the issue is civil, the conduct is not serious enough, another route is more appropriate, or the report does not disclose a regulatory breach. Those are different outcomes. They should not be blurred.
Second, former-client conflict reports should be answered through the correct framework: retainer, confidential information, materiality, adverse interest, safeguards, informed consent and threshold. That does not prejudge the outcome. It simply ensures that the answer matches the issue.
Third, complainants should frame reports carefully. The strongest report is not the one with the most forceful language. It is the one that separates the route, dates the evidence, identifies the standards engaged and shows why the issue is regulatory rather than merely private.
Source anchors
These source anchors support the regulatory framework discussed in this article. They do not prove any contested allegation about the report, Burnetts Solicitors, the landlord dispute or the SRA's handling of the matter.
SRA reporting route
Reporting a solicitor or firm
The SRA explains what it investigates, what it cannot help with, the evidence it needs and the action it can take.
SRA standards
Code of Conduct for Solicitors
The Code covers professional standards, conflicts, confidentiality, disclosure, cooperation and accountability.
SRA guidance
Conflicts of interest
The guidance explains own-interest conflicts, client conflicts, former-client issues, safeguards and informed consent.
SRA guidance
Drafting and preparation of wills
The guidance identifies professional obligations and areas of concern in will drafting and preparation.
SRA service complaints
Complaints about the SRA's service
The policy explains the SRA's service-complaint stages and the Independent Reviewer of Complaints route.
The closing point
The strongest criticism of the SRA in this type of case is not that the regulator had to agree with the complainant. It is that the regulator should show that it identified the correct regulatory question before deciding whether to investigate.
Where the report concerns a former client, a will retainer, a business asset, a later adverse instruction and alleged conduct in a related dispute, the public is entitled to expect more than a bare conclusion. It is entitled to expect a reasoned route map: what was regulatory, what was civil, what evidence was considered, what threshold was applied and why the report did or did not justify further action.
SRA report route check
Get a free written assessment of the route
Legal Lens can help structure an SRA report, service complaint, regulatory escalation or civil-route review into a clear issue map before the next step.
Separate the retainer documents, conflict concerns, landlord dispute material, chronology and contested factual points.
Identify whether the issue belongs with the SRA, Legal Ombudsman, court, professional negligence route or SRA service-complaint route.
Frame the questions that a decision-maker should answer without overstating what the current documents prove.
Independent Legal Lens consultancy. Legal Lens is not a regulated solicitors' firm. A preliminary assessment is not a substitute for regulated legal advice where that is needed.