The Solicitors’ Sole Practitioners Group (SSPG) is a not-for-profit independent stakeholder group, providing professional and pastoral support, training and regulatory representation on behalf of all Sole Practitioner solicitors in England and Wales.
Formed back in 1992, The SSPG set out to defend and champion the rights and interests of solicitors that practice independently. Over the years, the Group has built up its support and established its voice, developing contacts, and liaising with other legal organisations such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman. While initially funded by The Law Society, the SSPG now exists with independent status, furthermore, since 2002, the Group have been able to nominate two Law Society Council Members, and this remains a very important linkage with the main Law Society.
Penny Raby has been a Sole Practitioner specialising in family law for 26 years. Her practice, Penny Raby and Co Family Lawyers, which she runs with her forensic accountant husband Mike Gordon, specialises in divorce cases that involve business and complex finances and Inheritance Act disputes.
Penny believes in empowering her clients and offers an alternative approach to solving family disputes. Her offices in the Georgian market town of Pershore were converted from cottages dating back to the fifteenth century, and the presence of the staff dogs completes the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. She is actively involved promoting her profession, even taking a pantomime performance to successful European networking meetings. Penny represented her profession at national and local level on television and radio. In 2014, she won Worcestershire Family Lawyer of the Year award and in 2015, she was nominated for the National Family Law Magazine Family Law Firm of the Year. In 2019, Penny was elected chair of the Solicitors’ Sole Practitioners Group and has remained in that position throughout the pandemic, scheduled to hand over to the Vice Chair Joanna Connelly at the live SPG conference in Ascot 8-10 October 2021.
Penny has just been honoured to be shortlisted for the national Law Society’s Award for Sole Practitioner of the Year 2021-2022.
Over the years, Penny has consistently been an advocate for good cyber security as a way of demonstrating professional standards and protecting clients confidential information. We chatted with Penny about some of the many issues that sole practitioners are facing in the Covid era.
Tell us a little bit about the Sole Practitioners Group
Sole practitioner firms represent over one-third of all solicitor firms in the UK and the Sole Practitioner Group includes all 4000+ sole practitioner solicitors. The SPG is a strong advocate for high standards of excellence within our profession which includes training, insurance and cyber security. We think it is important not to compromise reassurance and protection of the public in order to give cheaper services. One example is that, although every sole practitioner has automatic free membership to the group, freelancers can join only if they have the appropriate insurance as we rate insurance as absolutely essential to give reassurance and protection to the client.
Besides acting as a mouthpiece for sole practitioners, we also act as a networking centre, advisor and referrer. We support our members through local groups, we organise training and conferences and we communicate through our website and the ‘Solo Journal’ which is our periodic magazine.
What motivated you to take the position of chairwoman?
I work with a wonderful team that is our executive committee, the vice chair, Joanna Connolly, the secretary, Clive Sutton, and treasurer Kem Masinbo-Amobi. They are all very important people and fulfil various functions, so I’m not doing this alone. I wanted to be chair to lead the group to achieve a higher profile and better service to members, and the example of several predecessors inspired me , in particular Lubna Shuja who is one of our council members and is now the Vice President of the national Law Society.
We were also able to keep up to date with all the various Government schemes, and inform and advise our members about the accessibility of loans and grants as well as the changing guidelines.
How has the issue of cyber security effected sole practitioners.
Whilst virtual meetings and working online from home have worked well for many sole practitioners, we have also been talking about Cyber Security as a topic in our conferences for at least the last three years. In February last year, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had a conference in London called ‘Keeping the Law firms safe’ , and SSPG members were the biggest group at that meeting. One reason for that is Sole Practitioners are much more vulnerable to criminal, civil and professional cases against them if there is any breach in Cyber Security. If you are working on your own, even if you have a limited company status, you are going to be in the hot seat if there is a breach of data protection.
Despite the significant threats, many solo practitioners can find they have got all of their resources tied up running the practice rather than focused on IT and cyber security. The Cyber Essentials Readiness Tool is a great place to get started. The process of working through a series of online questions enables a practitioner to understand their current level of protection and focus on any short falls in their cyber security.
Who can join the SSPG and how do you get membership?
Membership is available to any person who works as the only solicitor in their business and is completely free of charge. Sign up for membership on our website. Whether you are thinking of starting-up your own practice, already running your practice or even thinking of selling, merging or closing down your practice, we can help.