The Services Regs 2009 came into force on 28 December 2009. They are the result of an EU Directive and they apply to many categories of ‘service providers’ including solicitors (although they do not apply to notaries, and financial service providers).

The aim of the Regs is to ensure that customers have the necessary information. Virtually all the information required will already be provided by solicitors’ firms. The detailed information that must be made available is:

Postal address, fax or e-mail address, phone number, official address, name of firm, legal status (eg partnership, LLP, sole practitioner), VAT number, geographic address and contact details, professional body registered, general terms and conditions, any special contractual clauses concerning competent courts or applicable law, price of the service if it is pre-determined, the main features of the service to be provided, details of compulsory professional indemnity insurance.

As far as law firms are concerned, there are four requirements that may fall outside the existing professional requirements and therefore need to be addressed:

VAT number: this must be made available;

insurance: you must provide contact details of the insurer and territorial coverage details. Do not forget that r18.1 of the Indemnity Insurance Rules requires disclosure, on request, of the compulsory indemnity insurance limit. Some firms have gone further than required by the Services Regs and given their policy number. As far as disclosing limits of cover, Insurance Matters (from the Law Society) says that ‘if you wish to disclose particulars of your PI insurance over and above the minimum disclosures required, you should first obtain your insurer’s agreement in writing’;

non-judicial means of settlement: this means you must tell clients about non-judicial dispute resolution procedures that are available. In effect this means you have to provide information on the role of the Legal Complaints Service, including contact details. This is not currently required by the Code of Conduct; the advice now is to include all that information, and also refer to your internal complaints procedure as being the appropriate starting point for raising complaints or concerns;

relevant professional rules: this does not have to be provided to all customers, but only to those who request the information on professional rules that apply to you. It may therefore be good practice to pre-empt such enquiries by ensuring that all clients are told that you are subject to the provisions of the Solicitors Code of Conduct, with a reference to the SRA website.

Note that the supply of this information need not be as onerous as it sounds. You can make it easily accessible at your premises, or make it easily accessible by electronic means (eg website), or included in documents that you send to clients. Some firms will use a mixture of these means, but the important point is to ensure that all clients receive this mandatory information. In practice, the neatest solution is likely to be via a web page.