The SRA’s Transparency Rules
What the SRA asks your website to show.
Four things, in the SRA’s own words, and how a site shows each one. The SRA checks: by October 2024 it had issued 439 official warnings and 36 fixed penalties over these rules since May 2023, and more than 500 firms had changed their sites.
Prices, for the work the rules name
Rules 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4
If your site says you offer any of these, it must publish cost information for them. For people: buying, selling or re-mortgaging a home; probate where the estate is in the UK and nobody contests it; immigration applications and First-tier Tribunal appeals (not asylum); summary-only motoring offences at a single hearing; and an employee’s claim for unfair or wrongful dismissal. For businesses: defending those claims, debt recovery up to £100,000, and licensing applications.
On the site. A page of prices for each of these you offer, one tap from the first screen. Not a PDF in the footer.
What a price has to say
Rules 1.5 and 1.6
The total cost, or an average or range where that is not practicable; the basis, such as hourly rates or fixed fees; the experience and qualifications of whoever does the work, and of their supervisor; the likely disbursements and their cost; whether VAT applies, and how much; what the price includes, with the key stages and likely timescales, and what it does not. Clear, accessible and in a prominent place.
On the site. Each fee page in that order, so a reader can tick every item off. Your figures, my words, your approval.
Complaints, and the Legal Ombudsman
Rule 2.1
Publish your complaints handling procedure, including how and when a complaint can be made to the Legal Ombudsman and to the SRA.
On the site. One page, in plain words, linked from the foot of every page, with both routes and when each one opens.
Your SRA number and the badge
Rules 4.1 and 4.2
Display your SRA number and the SRA’s digital badge in a prominent place on your website. Your letterhead and emails carry your authorisation number and the words “authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority”.
On the site. The number and the badge in the first screen, not only the footer. The SRA supplies the badge as a piece of code, through its partner Yoshki. It shows only on a domain your firm has registered in mySRA, and a tap opens the SRA’s own page confirming the firm is regulated. It is the one thing on the page that comes from elsewhere, allowed because the rule asks for it.