The organisation has appointed representatives from black and ethnic minority groups, including president of the National Black Police Association, Ali Dizaei, and chair of the Society of Asian Lawyers, Sailesh Mehta, to sit on the working group, which is being supervised by Anesta Weekes QC of
SRA head of inclusion policy Mehrunnisa Lalani will also sit on the party, alongside two representatives from the SRA.
The working party will meet monthly to look into why lawyers from black and ethnic minority groups are facing more frequent investigations from the SRA and will then present an action plan for combating the problem.
They will be working closely with Lord Herman Ouseley, who is conducting an independent review of the SRA’s regulatory practice. The working party will help agree the scope and priorities of Ouseley’s review, which will look into all of the SRA’s regulatory policies and decision-making processes.
The SRA was recently forced to defend itself against accusations of racial discrimination after the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) and the Society of Black Lawyers (SBL) produced figures claiming that nearly two-thirds of the SRA’s misconduct investigations last year were against solicitors from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The AML and the SBL claimed the 2006 statistics were clear evidence that racial bias had been a factor in the SRA’s intervention work, which aims to penalise sub-standard legal practice.
Labour MP Keith Vaz, the chairman of the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee, has also criticised the SRA.
The SRA argued that the figures quoted were misleading. It said that the higher proportion of black and ethnic minority lawyers who work in either small practices or as sole practitioners further distorted the findings.
