*Regulatory facepalm*
The 2015 qualifying cohort at the London office of US giant Jones Day were very close to not becoming lawyers at all, it has emerged.
The close call was due to a registration oversight by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
Following reports in the blogosphere, the SRA confirmed to Legal Cheek this morning that there had been an “administrative error” in relation to Jones Day’s trainee lawyers but that the matter has now been resolved.
The trainees — who will now be fully qualified lawyers — should have been registered with the SRA when they commenced their training contracts in October 2013.
Having spotted the paperwork issue in July 2015 — almost two years later — staff at the solicitors’ regulatory body “corrected the problem”.
In a carefully worded statement, a spokesperson for the SRA told us:
All trainees have been registered from October 2013. But, on this occasion, unfortunately we didn’t process all of the paperwork when we should have. We found our mistake and corrected it in July last year. We are sorry about this administrative error and for any concern caused, but it is worth emphasising that all of the trainees are registered from October 2013 and none of their training has been affected.
Jones Day, which offers around 20 training contracts annually, has not yet responded to requests for comment.