SRA transparency rules: what a law firm's website must show

A law firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has to show two things on its website: its SRA number and, since November 2019, the SRA's digital badge, which links to the firm's entry on the register. On 19 October 2026 we read the websites of 348 firms in England and Wales that say they're SRA regulated, to see how many show both.

What we found

• 42.5% were missing the number, the badge, or both (148 of 348).
• More than a quarter (27.6%) showed no digital badge. The most common gap was a firm that prints its SRA number but has no badge.
• One in five (19.5%) showed no SRA number that we could find near the SRA's name.
• 4.6% showed neither.
• One in seven (14.4%) had no complaints information: no complaints page or procedure, and no mention of the Legal Ombudsman.

We checked 20 of the sites missing a number or a badge by hand. 19 were confirmed and 1 was unclear. We found no false alarms.

What the SRA transparency rules say

These rules apply to firms the SRA authorises in England and Wales. Some rules apply only to certain work, so check the rules and the SRA's guidance for your own firm.

• SRA number and digital badge. Rule 4.1 of the SRA Transparency Rules requires an authorised firm to display its SRA number and the digital badge prominently on its website. The badge has to work on the web address the firm has registered with the SRA, so a new domain needs updating in mySRA. The SRA explains how in its digital badge guidance.
• Complaints. Rules 2.1 and 3.1 require firms to publish their complaints procedure, and how and when a client can complain to the Legal Ombudsman and the SRA. See the SRA's guidance on publishing a complaints procedure.
• Prices and service details for some services, such as residential conveyancing and uncontested probate (rule 1). We didn't measure these.

The SRA does enforce these rules: by September 2024 it had issued 439 warnings and 36 fixed fines for transparency breaches since May 2023.

Five things to check on your firm's website

1. Your SRA number, in the footer of every page.
2. The digital badge, also in the footer, using the code from mySRA. Click it: it should open your firm's entry on the SRA register.
3. After a redesign or a new domain, check the badge still appears, and update the domain in mySRA if it changed.
4. A complaints page, linked from the footer, with your procedure and how and when to contact the Legal Ombudsman.
5. Price and service pages if you offer conveyancing, probate or the other listed services.

How we measured it

We picked 400 law firms at random from Companies House's solicitors category: limited companies and LLPs whose website we could match to their Companies House record, with a working home page that mentions solicitors, a law firm, legal services, conveyancing or probate. 348 of them say on their website that they're SRA regulated, and the figures above are for those 348. Partnerships and sole practitioners aren't in the sample.

On 19 October 2026 we read each home page and up to six linked pages, such as contact, about, legal, complaints and regulatory pages. An SRA number counts if a six-digit number appears near the SRA's name or “authorised and regulated”. A badge counts if the page loads the SRA's badge, links to the SRA register, or shows an image labelled as the SRA's. We didn't test whether each badge works. Our reader identified itself and obeyed each site's robots.txt.

Journalists and the profession are welcome to the figures and the method: chris@themesmith.ai.

More from our research: what letting agents' websites must show, and what we found on 1,056 plumbers' websites.