What is a legal consultancy? Are you a regulated law firm?

Sprintlaw operates in Australia and the UK. In Australia, Sprintlaw is a regulated law firm and is an incorporated legal practice with number 32845 regulated by the Law Society of New South Wales. In England and Wales, Sprintlaw instead operates as a legal consultancy and is not a traditionally regulated law firm under the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

So what is a legal consultancy?

A ‘legal consultancy’ is a new, innovative model of legal practice which has been available in the UK since 25 November 2019 stemming from changes introduced under the SRA Standards and Regulations 2019. The SRA’s stated intention in introducing this model was to “expand the ways in which solicitors can work in unregulated entities to promote increased opportunities for innovation, greater competition and a raising of standards and protections in the unregulated sector“.

As part of our legal consultancy model, Sprintlaw UK employs a mix of UK-qualified solicitors and Australian lawyers who provide legal services to our SME clients in the UK.

Because we’re not SRA-regulated, it means we have a lower compliance burden and we’re able to significantly reduce our overhead costs when performing legal work. We are then able to pass on these cost savings to our clients, allowing us to provide high quality legal services to clients at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.

It is important to note that there are a few limitations of the legal consultancy model. We’ve set out the key differences below. In our view, the benefits of engaging a legal consultancy outweigh these limitations for smaller growth companies which is why we’ve elected to operate this way in the UK. If you have any questions about any of these our team would be more than happy to discuss.

Key Differences

• Reserved Services: As a legal consultancy Sprintlaw is not allowed to offer legal services in certain ‘reserved areas‘, which would require us to be an SRA-regulated firm. These reserved areas include appearing in court, conducting litigation, lodging certain property documents, conducting probate, administering oaths and notarial activities. As such, Sprintlaw does not operate in these areas. We find these areas are rarely applicable to our business clients seeking commercial advisory services.
• Privilege: When working with traditional law firms, advice provided is considered “privileged”. This means that correspondence between a client and solicitor can, if made confidentially and for the purposes of legal advice, be withheld from a court or third party in connection with litigation proceedings. As Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy, it means that certain advice we provide may not be “privileged” but rather will be treated in the same manner as advice from your accountants or anyone else who is not a regulated advisor such as a solicitor or barrister. This does not affect our confidentiality obligations to you, and our engagement letter confirms that any advice or discussions we have will be kept confidential. Given that Sprintlaw do not operate in court-related or litigious matters, we find that privilege is rarely an issue relevant to our kind of legal work.
• Insurance: Sprintlaw is not required to have professional indemnity insurance that meets the SRA’s minimum terms and conditions (MTCs) set out here. Regardless, Sprintlaw has chosen to maintain professional indemnity cover of £2,000,000 per claim so our clients still benefit from insurance protection.
• SRA CF: Sprintlaw clients will not be eligible to make a claim under the SRA Compensation Fund, which is available to clients of regulated firms where their money has been stolen, misappropriated, or otherwise not properly accounted for; or in certain other limited circumstances. Considering we do not hold funds in escrow for clients in any transactional matters, this is not a pertinent risk to our clients. You can read more about the Fund here.