Mazur Ruling: How the Court of Appeal Exposed the SRA’s Regulatory Failure

How a £50,000 fee claim reached the Court of Appeal

The origins are unglamorous. Charles Russell Speechlys instructed Goldsmith Bowers Solicitors to recover unpaid fees of just over £50,000 from two former clients, Julia Mazur and Jerome Stuart. The claim was issued through Money Claims Online.

The particulars of claim were signed by Peter Middleton, described as GBS’s Head of Commercial Litigation. Middleton was a former solicitor who had been indefinitely suspended from practice and did not hold a current practising certificate.

Mazur and Stuart, acting as litigants in person, spotted it and challenged his right to conduct the litigation. The County Court allowed the case to proceed, relying in part on a letter the SRA had written to GBS on 2 December 2024, stating that section 21(3) of the Legal Services Act 2007 entitled employees of authorised firms to conduct litigation under supervision.

That letter matters later.

What the High Court decided, and why it landed badly

In September 2025, in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB), Sheldon J disagreed. He held that only authorised persons can conduct litigation, and that supervision alone does not confer that right on an employee who is not themselves authorised. He distinguished between supporting an authorised person in the conduct of litigation, which was permissible, and conducting litigation under supervision, which was not.

The consequence was severe, because conducting litigation without authorisation is a criminal offence under section 14 of the Legal Services Act 2007. Firms operating leveraged models, law centres, personal injury practices, local government teams and anyone relying on paralegals or unadmitted staff were confronted with the possibility that long-standing working practices exposed individuals to criminal liability.

Both the SRA and the Law Society supported Sheldon J’s interpretation.

What the Court of Appeal actually held

The appeal was brought by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives as a non-party, permission having been granted in November 2025 on the basis that it raised an important point of practice with compelling significance to the profession. The Legal Services Board, the Law Centres Network and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers intervened.

A three-judge panel of Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, Sir Colin Birss and Lady Justice Andrews unanimously overturned the High Court.

The principle is this: an unauthorised person may lawfully perform tasks that fall within the scope of the conduct of litigation, for and on behalf of an authorised person, provided the authorised person retains responsibility for the tasks delegated and appropriate arrangements for supervision, delegation, management and control are in place. The authorised person remains the one carrying on the conduct of litigation.

The Court rejected the supporting-versus-conducting distinction entirely. The Legal Services Act does not criminalise ordinary supervised delegation of litigation tasks to unauthorised staff.

CILEX chief executive Jennifer Coupland described it as the most consequential judgment for legal services in recent history, which for once may not be overstatement.

The regulator’s position, and why it is being questioned

The criticism directed at the SRA over this episode is not simply that it lost an argument. Regulators take positions and positions get tested.

The difficulty is the sequence. In December 2024 the SRA wrote to GBS stating that section 21(3) entitled employees of authorised firms to conduct litigation under supervision, a letter the County Court then relied on. When the matter reached the High Court, the SRA supported the opposite interpretation. When the Court of Appeal considered it, that interpretation was rejected unanimously.

For six months in between, firms whose entire delivery model depended on the answer were left to assess their own criminal exposure. Law centres, legal aid providers and smaller litigation practices carry the least capacity to absorb that kind of uncertainty, and they were among the most exposed.

The regulator’s supporters would point out that the statutory language is genuinely difficult, that the definition of conduct of litigation in Schedule 2 of the Legal Services Act lacks detail on what counts as an ancillary function, and that a regulator is entitled to argue for a cautious reading of a provision carrying criminal consequences. Both things can be true: the question was hard, and the profession was left carrying the risk while it was resolved.

This is not an isolated concern about the regulator’s performance. The Legal Services Board has separately taken enforcement action against the SRA, and reports of potential misconduct reaching the regulator have risen sharply, as our guide to SRA investigations sets out.

What firms should do now

The position has moved on since the judgment. On 12 June 2026 the SRA published updated guidance on effective supervision, reflecting the Court of Appeal’s decision and addressing how firms should approach delegation and supervision. The Law Society has published a practice note on Mazur and the conduct of litigation, and has said it is working with the SRA on further guidance.

Firms that formed a view in the aftermath of the High Court ruling, and have not revisited it since, are working from a position that is now two stages out of date.

The practical requirements follow directly from what the Court of Appeal said protects the delegation:

• The authorised person must retain responsibility. Not nominally. There needs to be a named authorised individual accountable for each matter, and they need to know they are.
• Supervision arrangements must exist and be documented. The judgment protects supervised delegation, so the evidence of supervision is what evidences the lawfulness of the arrangement.
• Delegation should be deliberate. Which tasks are delegated, to whom, and with what review, is a decision to be made rather than a practice to drift into.
• Job titles should not mislead. The original problem in Mazur was a suspended former solicitor holding out as Head of Commercial Litigation. Titles that imply authorisation the holder does not have create exposure beyond this judgment.
• Check the current guidance, not the commentary. Much of the material written between September 2025 and March 2026 describes a legal position that no longer exists.

Where the compliance duty sits is covered in our guide to the COLP role.