The recent High Court ruling in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) examined the scope and limits of conducting reserved legal activities. The court held that employment by an authorised law firm does not entitle a non-solicitor employee to conduct litigation even under the supervision of a qualified solicitor. This ruling has prompted renewed scrutiny of the Legal Services Act 2007 (“LSA”) and the practical boundaries of reserved legal activities.
It is not uncommon for companies to rely on non-legally qualified employees to perform tasks of a legal nature, for example, rent officers pursuing rent arrears or credit controllers handling debt recovery. Often those teams work without a solicitor’s oversight. This raises the question of whether those employees may inadvertently be carrying out reserved legal activities.
Previous regime
Before the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) were introduced, civil procedure was governed by the County Court Rules (CCR) and the Rules of the Supreme Court (RSC) which covered the High Court. The latter expressly prohibited companies from conducting proceedings without a solicitor, unless permitted by another statute. In contrast, companies would often appear in the county court without a legal representative. When the CPR replaced both sets of rules, the express prohibition in the RSC was not carried forward. Instead, the CPR permits a company to be represented at trial by an authorised employee, but only with the court’s permission, and also contains separate provisions on costs where a company appears as a litigant in person (and of course a company can only act through its employees so clearly the CPR envisages that a company’s employees can conduct litigation on behalf of their employer).
The LSA
The LSA restricts “reserved legal activities”, such as conducting litigation or exercising rights of audience, to authorised individuals (e.g. solicitors). However, it also provides exemptions allowing non-authorised persons to carry out certain reserved activities. It has long been assumed that employees undertaking legal work on behalf of their employer would fall within one of these exemptions.
Where rights of audience are concerned, the CPR and the LSA provide a clear framework, once the court grants permission, the employee will be exempt. The position on conducting litigation is less straightforward. Schedule 2 LSA defines “conduct of litigation” as issuing proceedings, managing the prosecution or defence, and performing ancillary functions such as entering appearances. Activities are excluded from this definition where, prior to the LSA’s commencement, no restriction existed on who could carry them out.
Determining if an individual has conducted litigation
The court has recently clarified that determining whether an individual has conducted litigation requires a holistic assessment of all activities undertaken on behalf of a litigant. While pre-issue tasks and legal advice do not themselves constitute conduct of litigation, they may be relevant to the overall assessment. Steps taken in relation to statements of case, including drafting, preparing enclosures, checking bundles, paying court fees, ensuring documents complied with and were filed in accordance with the CPR have been held to amount to the conduct of litigation. As has sending documents for review by an advocate and taking decisions concerning how to effect service.
Although schedule 3, paragraph 2(4) LSA provides an exemption for those who are a party to proceedings, this does not appear to extend to employees acting on behalf of a corporate employer, because it will be the company, not the employee, who will be the party. Whilst schedule 2 of the LSA contains grandfathering provisions, these cover the actions which are not reserved as opposed to the individuals who are not exempt.
However, a separate exemption exists for people who are not authorised but who have a right to conduct litigation in relation to those proceedings granted by other legislation.
The CPR does not confer a general right on employees of a litigant in person to “conduct litigation”. However, unlike the pre-CPR rules, which only allowed a solicitor to sign a writ (a concept now consigned to history), the CPR expressly authorises certain company officers to sign statements of truth on a number of court documents – and that would certainly amount to conducting litigation. That includes claims, acknowledgements of service, defences, replies, and disclosure reports. The CPR requires that statements of truth are signed by a senior company officer, such as a director, treasurer, secretary, chief executive, manager, or other officer. While that list might suggest that only a constitutional officer is eligible, the inclusion of positions like chief executive and manager shows that the requirement is broader – suggesting that certain employees, like a “rent officer”, can sign statements of truth by virtue of their status as an “officer” or senior position.
Where one of the designated senior people in the company is permitted by the CPR to sign a court document then it would follow, as a matter of course, that they would also be permitted to prepare that same document. Therefore, it would appear that such steps can be lawfully taken by the employee of the company who will be exempt.
However, where the CPR does not expressly authorise the action, such as filing a directions questionnaire or listing questionnaire, the position is unclear. The CPR does not mandate a statement of truth or even a signature (albeit the forms do provide for a signature) for these forms. This means there is no provision in an enactment exempting the employee for this activity.
Questions posed
The question then becomes whether completing and filing such documents amounts to conducting litigation. Given that the definition is not limited to formal steps taken at court and, in light of case law, many actions undertaken by employees on behalf of its employer as a corporate litigant in person may fall within the scope of conducting litigation and may not be exempt.
For companies with legally unqualified in-house teams operating without the management of a solicitor to conduct the litigation, it will be of some comfort that steps taken pre-action will not amount to conducting litigation and so there is no restriction placed on the activity by the LSA. In housing, this includes drafting notices under sections 8 and 21 of the Housing Act 1988, which the court has expressly said are not steps in proceedings, even though they precede them. Beyond that, while some steps in litigation have express provision for the involvement of an “officer” of the company, where no such provision exists, there appears to be no exemption under the LSA that can be confidently relied upon.
Therefore, does the fact that the CPR envisages corporate litigants in person in some way impliedly authorise corporate employees to conduct litigation on behalf of their employer? It must be said this seems a very thin basis to justify that but as the alternative is that companies would need to retain a solicitor for some (but not all) of a piece of litigation it seems overwhelmingly likely that the court, if asked, would so find.
Thoughts
It should be noted that these issues do not arise from Mazur but have been thrown into sharp focus by the court’s attention to this issue in Mazur so even if Mazur is wrongly decided (which the authors are clear it is) and overturned this conundrum will remain for corporate litigants in person.
Speak to a specialist
Contact our commercial and private client litigation team through or our online form or call us on 0345 209 1000
Posted:
