SRA Principles and Code for Solicitors

Until 25 November 2019, solicitor conduct was governed by the SRA Handbook, a dense, principles-and-outcomes document running to several hundred pages. On that date the SRA Standards and Regulations replaced it wholesale, compressing the framework into a much shorter, rules-based structure. The redesign matters for SQE1 because it is why the exam tests two distinct, layered instruments rather than one: the SRA Principles, sitting at the very top as the constitutional layer, and the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, sitting underneath as the operational rulebook. Every scenario question is really asking you to move between these two layers — spot which Principle is engaged, then find the specific Code rule that gives it teeth.

The SRA Principles are seven mandatory, high-level statements of ethical behaviour that the SRA expects of everyone it regulates — not a pick-and-choose list, but a constitution that sits above every other rule. A solicitor must act:

1. In a way that upholds the constitutional principle of the rule of law and the proper administration of justice.
2. In a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the solicitors' profession and in legal services provided by authorised persons.
3. With independence.
4. With honesty.
5. With integrity.
6. In a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion.
7. In the best interests of each client.

Two of these principles are easy to conflate, and the SQE1 examiners know it. Honesty (Principle 4) is about not lying and not being deceptive — a factual, binary standard. Integrity (Principle 5) is broader: it captures adherence to the ethical standards of the profession even where no dishonesty is involved at all. A solicitor can tell the literal truth and still breach Principle 5 — for example, by exploiting a technicality against an unrepresented opponent in a way that is legal and honest but corrodes the professional standard the public is entitled to expect. When a scenario describes conduct that is technically true but obviously shabby, integrity, not honesty, is almost always the Principle in play.

Definition to memorise: Integrity is compliance with the ethical standards of the profession, independent of whether any dishonesty occurred. Honesty is the narrower, factual absence of lies or deception.

Who is bound, and by what

The Principles bind individuals — solicitors, registered European lawyers (RELs), registered foreign lawyers (RFLs), and registered Swiss lawyers (RSLs) — as well as authorised firms themselves. An RFL is worth pausing on because SQE1 likes to test edge-of-scope characters: an RFL is a lawyer qualified and regulated outside England and Wales who has registered with the SRA so they can practise their home-country law from within an SRA-authorised firm. They are not a solicitor of England and Wales, yet they are still caught by the same seven Principles and by a dedicated Code of Conduct that names them explicitly — the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs, RFLs and RSLs. A parallel but separate instrument, the Code of Conduct for Firms, governs the business itself rather than the individuals inside it; a firm can breach its Code even where no individual solicitor has breached theirs, and vice versa.

Breach of a Principle or of a Code provision is not merely disappointing — it is the trigger for regulatory or disciplinary action, up to and including referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Every rule that follows in this note should be read with that consequence attached.

Real practice does not present the Principles one at a time. A solicitor might be able to serve a client's best interests (Principle 7) only by bending the truth to a court, which would break Principle 1's demand for the proper administration of justice. The Code resolves this with a clean priority rule: where two or more Principles conflict, the one that best serves the public interest — particularly the interest in the proper administration of justice — takes precedence.

This is not an abstract tie-breaker; it is baked into the structure of the Principles themselves. The client-facing duty in Principle 7 is explicitly subordinate to the solicitor's overriding duty to the court and to the administration of justice, which flows from Principle 1. Put concretely: a solicitor's duty to act in the client's best interests never authorises misleading a tribunal, and if disclosing an inconvenient fact is what the administration of justice requires, that duty to the court can require conduct — or disclosure — that directly damages the individual client's litigation position. In an SQE1 ethics scenario, correctly identifying which Principle takes precedence is nearly always a matter of asking: which course of action best protects the public interest and the administration of justice? That single question resolves the overwhelming majority of "what should the solicitor do here" fact patterns.

If the Principles are the constitution, the Code of Conduct for Solicitors is the statute book that operationalises it. It is organised into eight sections, each governing a discrete zone of a solicitor's professional life. Knowing the section map lets you locate the right rule fast under exam pressure, so treat the following as a mental filing cabinet, not a list to memorise verbatim.

Section 1 — Maintaining trust and acting fairly

This section translates the abstract Principles into concrete floor-level conduct. Rule 1.1 forbids a solicitor from letting personal views affect professional relationships in a way that unfairly discriminates against anyone — the operational cousin of Principle 6's equality, diversity and inclusion mandate. Rule 1.2 bars a solicitor from abusing their position to take unfair advantage of clients or others, which is where a shabby-but-technically-legal manoeuvre against an unrepresented party would be caught. Rule 1.4 prohibits misleading or attempting to mislead clients, the court, or others, whether by act or omission — silence, in the right context, is just as much a breach as an active lie.

Sitting alongside these is the undertakings rule: a solicitor must perform every undertaking they give, within the agreed timescale or, absent agreement, within a reasonable time. This obligation does not evaporate merely because performing it later becomes inconvenient or costly — an undertaking given must be honoured even where circumstances have shifted and compliance has become onerous or unwelcome to the solicitor who gave it. Undertakings are treated with such gravity precisely because the entire machinery of conveyancing, litigation settlements, and client-money release depends on other parties being able to trust a solicitor's word without independent verification.

Section 2 — Dispute resolution and court proceedings

Here the rule of law obligation from Principle 1 gets its sharpest teeth. A solicitor must not attempt to deceive, or knowingly or recklessly mislead, the court — a standard stricter than ordinary honesty because it also catches reckless indifference to truth, not just deliberate lies. Court orders that impose obligations on the solicitor must be complied with. Two further constraints police the boundary between zealous advocacy and manufactured evidence: a solicitor must not place undue pressure on a witness when preparing a witness statement, and must not draft a statement of case or witness statement containing contentions the solicitor knows are not properly arguable. Together these rules mean a solicitor can construct the strongest honest case available, but cannot manufacture the appearance of a stronger one.

Section 3 — Service and competence

Section 3 is where Principle 7's "best interests of each client" becomes a checklist of concrete service standards. A solicitor must act only on the instructions of the client, or of someone properly authorised to instruct on the client's behalf — protecting against unauthorised third parties directing a matter. The service provided must be competent and delivered in a timely manner, and the solicitor must maintain that competence, keeping professional knowledge and skills up to date. This last obligation is not a vague aspiration: it reflects the SRA's continuing competence framework, which replaced the old mandatory hours-based continuing professional development (CPD) regime — competence is now assessed by genuine currency of knowledge and skill, not by a tally of attended hours. Section 3 also requires a solicitor to consider and take account of each client's individual attributes, needs and circumstances, recognising that "competent service" looks different for a vulnerable client than for a sophisticated repeat commercial client. Finally, delegation does not dilute accountability: a solicitor remains answerable for work carried out under their supervision even where the day-to-day tasks have been handed to a trainee, paralegal, or junior colleague.

Section 4 — Client money and assets

This section protects the single most trust-sensitive part of practice. A solicitor must properly account to clients for any financial benefit received as a result of the client's instructions — a commission or referral payment cannot simply be pocketed. Money and assets entrusted by clients or third parties must be safeguarded, and a solicitor must not hold client money in their own name except where properly authorised to do so, closing off the obvious route to misappropriation.

Section 5 — Business requirements

Section 5 governs the commercial edges of practice — referral arrangements and separate businesses run alongside a legal practice. Where a solicitor refers a client to another person or business, they must disclose any financial or other interest they have in that referral, so the client can judge whether the recommendation is genuinely in their interest or is being driven by a kickback.

Section 6 — Conflicts, confidentiality and disclosure

This is the densest, most exam-favoured section, because conflict scenarios generate rich, realistic fact patterns. The core prohibition under rule 6.2 is that a solicitor must not act where there is a conflict of interest, or a significant risk of one — subject to two narrow, cumulative exceptions. The first applies where clients have a substantially common interest in the matter (think two co-founders instructing the same firm to set up a joint venture) and give informed written consent. The second applies where clients are competing for the same objective — for example, rival bidders in a structured auction for the same asset — and again give informed written consent. Both exceptions demand genuinely informed, evidenced consent; they are not a general licence to act for adverse parties whenever nobody complains.

Confidentiality is governed separately under rule 6.3: a solicitor must keep the affairs of current and former clients confidential unless disclosure is required or permitted by law, or the client consents. Crucially, this duty survives the retainer — it does not expire when the file closes or the client walks away, which is precisely why conflict checks must reach back through a firm's historical client list, not just its current roster.

Source: Money-laundering by No machine-readable author provided. ExplicitImplicity assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0.

Running in the opposite direction is the disclosure duty under rule 6.4: a solicitor acting for a client must make that client aware of all information material to the matter of which the solicitor has knowledge. This creates an obvious tension with confidentiality owed to someone else, so the Code carves out exceptions — disclosure is not required where it is prohibited by law (for instance under anti-money-laundering or national security legislation), or where the client to whom the information relates gives informed consent to it being withheld. Where confidentiality to one client and disclosure to another cannot both be satisfied, rule 6.5 supplies the answer: a solicitor must not act for a client where they hold confidential information material to that client which is also relevant to another client with an adverse interest, unless effective information barriers are in place or informed consent has been given. Rules 6.3–6.5 form a single logical chain — protect old confidences, disclose new material facts, and when the two collide, either wall the information off or step away from the retainer entirely.

Source: The Great Wall of China at Jinshanling-edit by Severin.stalder, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Section 7 — Cooperation and accountability to the SRA

Regulation only works if the regulator can see what is happening, so Section 7 imposes duties that run toward the SRA itself rather than toward clients. A solicitor must report promptly to the SRA any facts or matters they reasonably believe are capable of amounting to a serious breach of the regulatory arrangements by a regulated person — this reporting duty, sometimes tested as a whistle-blowing scenario, applies even where the breach concerns a colleague rather than the solicitor's own conduct. More broadly, a solicitor must cooperate fully with the SRA and provide the information it reasonably requires, and must not attempt to prevent anyone from providing information to the SRA or to the Legal Ombudsman — a rule aimed squarely at gagging clauses or settlement terms designed to silence a complainant.

Source: Edward Snowden-2 by Laura Poitras / Praxis Films, CC BY 3.0.

Section 8 — Services to the public

Section 8 applies specifically where a solicitor provides services to the public or a section of the public, and is the section most likely to be tested through a client-care or complaints-handling scenario. A solicitor must identify who they are acting for in any matter — no ambiguity about which party a solicitor represents. They must have, or work within a firm that has, a written complaints procedure, and a client must be told in writing, at the time of engagement, of their right to complain and how to do so. The most exam-tested detail in this section is the timing trigger for external escalation:

If a client's complaint is not resolved to their satisfaction within eight weeks of the complaint being made, the client must be told in writing of their right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

Cost transparency receives equal weight: a solicitor must give clients the best possible information about the likely overall cost of a matter, both at the outset and as the matter progresses — a running duty, not a one-off estimate. Finally, any publicity produced by or on behalf of a solicitor must not be inaccurate or misleading, extending the Section 1 anti-deception principle to marketing and advertising.

SQE1 deliberately does not reward rote recall of "rule 6.2" in isolation. It assesses whether you can apply the Principles and Code to realistic, client-based scenarios — the kind of messy fact pattern where a client's urgent commercial pressure, a witness's reluctance, and a looming court deadline collide in the same afternoon. The reliable exam technique is always the same two-step move: first, identify which Principle is actually under strain in the facts (Is it the rule of law? Public trust? The client's best interests being squeezed by something bigger?); second, locate the specific Code of Conduct rule that gives that Principle operational bite, and apply it to the facts as precisely as the wording allows. A solicitor's overriding duty to the court, rooted in Principle 1, is the single most common source of "against the client's own interest" answers in these scenarios — internalise that whenever the rule of law and a client's tactical advantage genuinely conflict, the rule of law wins, and the correct answer will usually say so.