Court of Appeal reverses Mazur ruling, confirming supervised non-solicitors can conduct litigation work and resolving a year of uncertainty for alternative legal service providers

The Court of Appeal has reversed the first-instance Mazur ruling, holding that supervised non-solicitors are permitted to carry out litigation work. The decision offers significant reassurance to law firms and alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) — businesses that deliver legal services using non-lawyer personnel — whose operating models had faced acute scrutiny following the original judgment. The lower court ruling in Mazur had cast doubt on whether paralegals and other non-qualified staff could lawfully conduct litigation tasks even under the supervision of a qualified solicitor, threatening to disrupt a wide range of business models that have grown up around the post-Legal Services Act 2007 regulatory framework. The Court of Appeal's reversal clarifies that the reserved legal activity of 'conducting litigation' does not require every step in a case to be performed personally by a qualified solicitor — supervision is a sufficient safeguard. Firms involved include 4 New Square, Blackstone Chambers, Charles Russell Speechlys, Fountain Court Chambers, Kingsley Napley, and Russell-Cooke. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was named as a company party to proceedings. The ruling has immediate practical significance for firms operating mixed teams of solicitors and paralegals on high-volume litigation, and for the growing market of managed legal services providers deploying non-qualified reviewers on large disclosure and due diligence exercises.

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