Will the changes affect the practising certificate fee and how I renew my practising certificate?
• Changes required by the Legal Services Act will impact on the annual practising certificate renewal process. With firm-based regulation, we now have an annual renewal process for all firms, including recognised sole practitioners, which links to the annual practising certificate exercise for individual solicitors. We don’t intend to make significant changes to the fees paid for practising certificates straight away. We are working on the development of an appropriate and fair system of fee allocation and collection and have recently consulted on this. We propose to make changes in an evolutionary way, where possible, so we are unlikely to implement significant changes to the fee structure before November 2010. In the meantime, the main expense of regulation will continue to be through the practising certificate fee. Did this answer your question?
