Lawyers and law firms will soon face increased fees to support the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s “transformation” strategy, as the regulator looks to reinvent itself following a string of high-profile corporate collapses in recent years.

As announced in its 2026-27 business plan, the regulator will increase its practising certificate price by over 26 per cent from £190 in 2025-26 to £240. The increase is expected to generate £111.5m. A qualified solicitor in England and Wales needs a practising certificate in order to provide legal services.

Since 2021-22, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has now increased the fees by more than 65 per cent from £145.

Its discretionary fund is seeing the largest jump in fees for both lawyers and law firms. The compensation fund is a safety net for clients, small businesses, charities, and trusts who suffer financial loss because a solicitor or law firm stole money or failed to account for money.

The fund has been forced to step in and support clients several times in recent years after a crop of corporate failures. Axiom Ince failed in 2023 when £64m of client money went missing, PM Law folded in February after a £39.5m suspected client-account fraud, and SSB Group collapsed in Janaury 2024 owing over £200m to litigation funders.

The SRA said on Thursday, as of 5 August, it had over 500 applications following the PM Law collapse, resulting in £15.6m being deducted from the fund.

The watchdog is set to increase its discretionary fund fees for solicitors from £70 to £170 and for law firms from £1,950 to £2,170, as the SRA said the “increase in contribution is required to meet its future obligations”. Since 2021-22, fees for lawyers have increased by 325 per cent, while fees for law firms have increased by over 185 per cent.

The SRA is also dealing with a rising tide of misconduct reports. Between November 2022 and October 2025, the number of misconduct reports it assessed rose by 45 per cent, from 11,378 to 16,499.

New boss orders regulatory ‘reset’

Sarah Rapson, SRA’s chief executive, has said it will be a complete regulatory “reset” of the watchdog.

“I was appointed chief executive in November 2025, at a time of growing pressure on the organisation. I spent my first months in the role carefully identifying issues and undertaking an evaluation of the areas that we need to address,” she said.

“While there is much the organisation does well and on which to build, the SRA faces multiple challenges which, taken together, mean that a reset is required.”

To maintain public confidence, the SRA said it is pushing forward with new rules that require firms to provide specific, binding timelines for resolution when a complaint is first made, along with a mandate to provide regular progress updates to the client.

The watchdog is narrowing its strategic focus to build a “wider menu of regulatory tools” designed to identify risks early. The plan outlined heavy investments in data collection and analysis to spot patterns of consumer harm and execute early interventions, rather than waiting to strike after a firm collapses.