ICAEW to consider regulating more than just probate

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) is to consider in the next few months whether to apply to regulate reserved legal activities such as litigation.

The ICAEW applied to regulate probate services and ABSs in December last year. Price Bailey became the first accountancy firm to obtain an ABS licence from the SRA at the end of last month.

Claire Phillips, regulatory policy manager at the ICAEW, said: "If there is a will from our members for us to apply to regulate legal services more widely than just probate, we will consider it. We'll be looking at where we go in the coming months."

Phillips said no decision had been taken to launch a formal consultation with members, but a number of 'communication channels' could be used.

Before making its application to the LSB, a consultation with members revealed that 250 firms were interested in being regulated by the ICAEW as ABSs.

Phillips said the institute believed the real figure was slightly higher, and had estimated that initially around 100 firms would be licensed.

She said some firms had complained to the ICAEW about the SRA's "lengthy" application process, which they also described as "quite rigorous". Some of the law firms successfully licensed by the SRA have made similar comments.

Phillips said the LSB was expected to decide whether to approve the ICAEW's applications in the summer, probably in July, but it would take a further six months to be approved by the Lord Chancellor. This would mean that the ICAEW could start receiving ABS applications from January 2014.

"Unfortunately the process does take quite a long time, but we're working as hard as we can," Phillips added.

Peter Gillman (pictured), managing director of accountants Price Bailey, said it obtained its ABS licence from the SRA to enable it to provide employment law advice.

Gillman said the move was triggered by the appointment of a solicitor, employment lawyerVictoria Pratley, to head its payroll department. Pratley is now COLP of Price Bailey Legal Services.

"That was the origin of the application," Gillman told Solicitors Journal. "There was no master plan to create an accountancy legal giant."

Gillman acknowledged that whether accountants would move into legal services was a "hot issue" and everyone was watching the market to see what would happen.

"We're pleased to have got this structure in place. Some people said they didn't believe accountancy firms would get licences from the SRA. We've shown it is not impossible."

Gillman said the firm had been asked for employment law advice after the payroll department became aware that clients had dismissed employees.

"Accountants may enquire as to whether they have gone through due process," Gillman said. "Small businesses often have not, so we would seek to advise them.

"Where there are particular problems, we would refer the issue to a law firm, but a lot of advice is very straightforward."

Gillman said another area where larger clients often asked for legal advice was over employment contracts.

"Where clients have employees without contracts, we suggest they talk to solicitors, but quite often they ask us to draft the contracts."

Gillman said he had no plans for the firm to recruit more lawyers, but the firm was "not slow in developing opportunities".

He added that if the ICAEW became an ABS regulator, Price Bailey would "be interested in being covered by one regulator".