The High Court in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) has thrown firms into turmoil. The judgment exposes criminal liability where unqualified staff conduct litigation or are asked to do so by managers. The risks extend to conveyancing, though most will fall within statutory exemptions. Firms with high ratios of unqualified staff now face the stark choice of retraining, restructuring, or risking prosecution. A legislative fix could extend exemptions to delegated litigation, but political appetite is scarce. In the meantime, expect more staff to seek qualification and firms to fund it, altering the profession’s balance.
The case of Mazur and another v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) continues to reverberate and the consequences have yet to unfold for most firms. The potential consequences are most dire, for those firms who have a heavily pyramidal structure, or a large ratio of unqualified to qualified staff.
The most pressing consequence of the decision is to ensure that unqualified staff are not committing crimes, through undertaking tasks which constitute the conduct of litigation.
Not only do unqualified staff face potential criminal penalties, the scheme of the Legal Services Act 2007 imposes criminal sanctions on the managers who give unqualified staff those tasks.
The ramifications of the decision stretch beyond litigation: conveyancers are at risk too, given that reserved instrument activities concerning the Land Regisration Act 2002 are also a reserved legal activity, although I suspect that most conveyancers will be able to rely on the exemption in schedule 3 of the Legal Services Act 2007. When acting on the direction of their principals they are like to be exempt persons.
But in the longer term, there may be good news too. Many unqualified staff, will now seek to obtain their qualifications, in order to keep doing the jobs they love.
Firms in turn will need to invest heavily in training them. The balance and nature of the profession, between qualified and unqualified staff is now set to change.
The problem could easily be remedied by amendment to primary legislation: just as there are exemptions for the exercise of rights of audience, or carrying out reserved instrument activities, in schedule 3, that schedule could be amended to include a similarly drafted provision, permitting the conduct of litigation on a delegated basis.
I have to say, though that I suspect that the government will not regard this as a priority.
There are many other potential reforms which are unlikely to get parliamentary time, and this will not be seen as a pressing problem, even if the significance is understood by the government.