Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys: what it means for litigators

Mazur and the conduct of litigation

We’ve responded to our members’ request to develop a new practice note to help solicitors, law firms and legal businesses understand:

• who is authorised to practise litigation under the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007), and
• where the dividing line is between conducting litigation and supporting an authorised person to do so

Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys considered whether a non-authorised person is entitled to conduct litigation under the supervision of an authorised person.

“We are aware that Mazur created uncertainty across the legal profession,” said Law Society president Mark Evans.

“While the judgment does not change the statutory requirements relating to authorised conduct of litigation as a reserved legal activity, we hope this practice note will provide greater clarity to our members.

“However, there remain grey areas where further guidance from regulators and others is required.”

Read the practice note on Mazur and the conduct of litigation.

The case

Defendants to a debt claim acting in person, sought a direction that the individual acting for the claimants be replaced by a qualified solicitor.

A stay was imposed and later lifted with a costs order made against the defendants.

The defendants appealed against that costs order on the basis that the judge making it had been wrong in deciding that the individual conducting the litigation for the claimants had been entitled to do so.

The decision

The Administrative Court restated the position in the LSA 2007 and the SRA’s 2022 guidance on effective supervision that even within a regulated entity, only an “authorised person” may “conduct” litigation.

Non-authorised staff cannot carry on the reserved legal activity of the conduct of litigation simply by being an employee or an authorised firm.

Both the firm and the person carrying on the activity must be authorised.

Whilst affirming those principles, the court did not decide that the conduct of the specific litigation giving rise to the appeal had been unlawful.

Nor did it identify any particular working practices which would generally be considered lawful or unlawful.

It was recognised that any such decision would depend on fact and degree in individual cases.

What this means for solicitors

The Mazur judgment relates only to litigation, not to other reserved activities.

However, solicitors undertaking other reserved activities may still wish to review the SRA guidance on supervision to make sure their processes are compliant.

Anyone undertaking litigation who is concerned that they have unqualified staff “conducting” (as opposed to “supporting”) litigation will wish to review their processes to make sure they are not acting in breach of the Legal Services Act.

There are no statutory restrictions on unqualified staff undertaking work pre-litigation or on someone who is an exempt person in relation to the conduct of litigation.

While previous cases have looked at the question of where the boundary is between “conducting” and “supporting” litigation (for example, Baxter v Doble [2023] EWHC 486), this remains a grey area.

You may wish to consider this judgment and possibly take independent legal advice if you have doubts as to whether your practices fall on the right side of the line.

Next steps

The Legal Services Board (LSB) will carry out a regulatory review following the Mazur ruling.

The review aims to establish:

• what happened in the past, and
• how approved regulators and regulatory bodies ensured that information on conducting litigation was accurate and reliable

The LSB review will help identify possible lessons to maintain clarity and confidence in the regulatory framework.

We will provide an update on what further guidance the SRA is planning to provide as soon as possible.