News releases

SRA's helpline celebrates a successful year

17 February 2009

The SRA's free Ethics helpline is celebrating a successful year on 18 February, having dealt with more than 57,000 enquiries from the profession over the past 12 months (February 2008 to end January 2009) - an average of 240 a day.

The service, which provides solicitors with guidance on issues of professional conduct and ethics, was originally open four hours a day. A year ago, as part of the SRA’s strategy to help solicitors to comply with their professional obligations, it was extended to 09.00 to 17.00, five days a week, and a number of new advisers were recruited to cope with demand and improve performance levels.

In the space of a few months, the number of calls answered within the service level started a steady rise - from 25 per cent, in March 2008, to 90 per cent, by November 2008. Abandoned call rates in the same period declined from over 40 per cent to 2 per cent.

To illustrate the turnaround in performance, comparison figures for the months of March 2008 and November 2008 are as follows:

*Service level represents calls answered within 60 seconds.

In addition, the team has made marked improvements in dealing with emails and letters in the same period. The service level has been improved from 20 working days to 10 working days; whereas, in January 2008, there were 62 items of correspondence outside the 20-day service level, by January this year, all correspondence was being answered within the 10-day target.

Liz McAnulty, director of Standards at the SRA, is proud of the improvements. "We needed to up our game in terms of providing advice to the profession, and the limited working hours just weren't sufficient," she said. "The new advisers we recruited are mainly solicitors with a number of years in practice who have brought with them expertise in litigation, conveyancing, medical negligence, matrimonial/family and mental health tribunals.

"The scope of the questions we receive covers a very wide area but all the advisers are legally qualified and they receive continuing monitoring and mentoring. We feel this is a very important service we’re providing to help solicitors avoid any pitfalls they may get into through either a lack of understanding, or misinterpretation of the Code of Conduct. It is important to recognise that the improvements made over the past 12 months are the result of real hard work and commitment on the part of the whole team and I congratulate them on their efforts."

Advisers undergo a month's intensive training session on the Solicitors' Code of Conduct and rules, with continuing coaching and mentoring over a further 12 months. In addition, the team discuss and debate queries at their weekly team meetings and attend courses on areas of practice to keep their knowledge up to date.