Julia Mazur and Jerome Stuart v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2026] EWCA Civ 369: the Court of Appeal on delegated conduct of litigation

In Julia Mazur and Jerome Stuart v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2026] EWCA Civ 369, the Court of Appeal gave important guidance on the meaning of the phrase “carry on the conduct of litigation” in the Legal Services Act 2007, and on the extent to which tasks falling within the conduct of litigation may lawfully be performed by unauthorised persons for and on behalf of an authorised individual. In a judgment given by Sir Colin Birss, with which the Master of the Rolls and Lady Justice Andrews agreed, the court held that an unauthorised person may lawfully perform such tasks for and on behalf of an authorised individual, provided that the authorised individual retains responsibility and has in place appropriate arrangements for supervision, management and control.

That conclusion reversed the narrower approach adopted by Sheldon J, who had accepted a distinction between merely supporting an authorised solicitor and conducting litigation under that solicitor’s supervision. The appeal was pursued by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, with support from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the Law Centres Network, because the point had consequences far beyond the immediate dispute. On the approach below, ordinary working practices in law firms and law centres potentially risked allegations of criminal conduct under section 14 of the 2007 Act, and even contempt of court under section 14(4).

The importance of the decision lies not only in the outcome, but in the route by which the court reached it. The judgment is a substantial examination of the history of delegated litigation work, the structure and purpose of the 2007 Act, and the correct reading of authorities such as Ndole Assets v Designer M&E Services [2018] EWCA Civ 2865 and Baxter v Doble [2023] EWHC 486 (KB).

Factual background

The appeal arose out of a comparatively modest fee dispute which developed into a point of wider significance. Charles Russell Speechlys LLP sought to recover unpaid fees of more than £50,000 from former clients, Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart. To do so, it instructed Goldsmith Bowers Solicitors. Proceedings were issued against Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart through Money Claims Online, and the Particulars of Claim were signed by Peter Middleton, described as Head of Commercial Litigation at Goldsmith Bowers Solicitors.

Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart identified that Mr Middleton did not hold a practising certificate and applied to the court on the basis that he was unlawfully conducting litigation, a reserved legal activity under the 2007 Act. DDJ Campbell stayed the proceedings and directed that any application to lift the stay should be supported by evidence from a partner of the firm explaining the position.

That evidence came from Robert Ashall, a practising solicitor and director of Goldsmith Bowers Solicitors. He accepted that Mr Middleton was not himself entitled to conduct reserved legal activities, but maintained that Mr Middleton had been acting for and on behalf of him, as the authorised individual with conduct of the matter. Mr Ashall explained that Mr Middleton had taken instructions, given advice, drafted the claim form, submitted it to court using the firm’s online account, served statements of case, and instructed counsel, all within a supervised working structure. He also referred to the firm’s practice of using non-authorised fee earners in support of authorised persons in commercial debt recovery work.

The position was then complicated by the regulator’s response. Following a self-report, the Solicitors Regulation Authority stated in December 2024 that no further action was required and said that the firm’s employees were permitted to undertake reserved activities by reason of section 21(3) of the 2007 Act. The Court of Appeal later held that this was wrong in law. HHJ Simpkiss lifted the stay, relying in part on that response.

On appeal, Sheldon J held that section 21(3) did not authorise an employee to conduct litigation and that the authorisation of the firm did not authorise the employee. He accepted the distinction advanced by the Law Society and the SRA between permissible support for an authorised solicitor and prohibited conduct of litigation under supervision. That ruling had immediate implications across the legal sector, and CILEX was then permitted to join the proceedings as appellant in order to challenge it in the Court of Appeal.

The issues before the court

The Court of Appeal identified three principal issues.

First, whether Sheldon J was right to hold that an unauthorised person is “carrying on the conduct of litigation” if that person does acts which constitute the conduct of litigation under the supervision of an authorised individual.

Secondly, what acts actually amount to conducting litigation, including the relevance and correctness of Baxter v Doble [2023] EWHC 486 (KB).

Thirdly, whether the working model used by law centres, under which authorised lawyers supervise unauthorised staff and retain ultimate responsibility while delegated tasks are carried out by those staff, is contrary to the 2007 Act.

The court’s reasoning

The historical backdrop

The court began with history and statutory context. That part of the judgment is central to the result. The court held that, long before the 2007 Act, there was a widespread, general and well regulated practice of delegation by solicitors to unqualified staff. Authorities such as The Law Society v Waterlow Bros & Layton (1883) 8 App Cas 407, Myers v Elman [1940] AC 282 and Hollins v Russell [2003] EWCA Civ 718 recognised that litigation and other legal work could, in appropriate circumstances, be carried out through clerks and other staff acting for the solicitor and in the solicitor’s name, while the solicitor remained professionally responsible to the client and to the court.

That history mattered because Parliament was taken to have legislated against it. The court considered that the 2007 Act was intended to reform the regulation of legal services, not to introduce a radical and unheralded change to the longstanding practice of supervised delegation. The predecessor offence in section 70 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 had been interpreted narrowly in Agassi v Robinson [2005] EWCA Civ 1507, and the Court of Appeal saw no indication that the 2007 Act was intended to expand criminal liability so as to capture ordinary supervised working practices within authorised legal practices.

The meaning of the statutory language

The central point of construction was this. The court held that the words “conduct of litigation” refer to the relevant tasks. By contrast, the words “carry on” refer to the direction and control of, and responsibility for, those tasks.

That distinction is critical. It means that the person who performs a task is not necessarily the person who, in law, carries on the reserved legal activity. An unauthorised person may perform the task. But if an authorised individual retains real responsibility for it, both in the formal sense and in the wider professional sense reflected in section 1(3) of the 2007 Act, it is the authorised individual who is carrying on the conduct of litigation.

The court rejected the suggestion that “carry on” simply means “do”. It also rejected the rival suggestion that the word “conduct” in the phrase “conduct of litigation” itself imports the necessary element of control and responsibility. In the court’s analysis, the better reading is that “conduct of litigation” identifies the class of acts, while “carry on” identifies who is, in law, directing, controlling and responsible for them.

The court was also careful to distinguish between authorised firms and authorised individuals. Its reasoning was not that the authorisation of the firm somehow authorised the employee to conduct litigation. Nor was section 21(3) the source of the answer. Section 21(3) brings employees within the scope of regulatory arrangements. It does not make them authorised persons. The true explanation is different. Where an unauthorised employee acts for and on behalf of an authorised individual who retains responsibility, the employee is not himself or herself carrying on the reserved legal activity. Sections 15 and 16 did not alter that analysis, because they apply only where the employee is in fact carrying on the reserved activity.

Ndole and Baxter

The court then addressed the authorities said to support the judge’s approach below. It held that Ndole Assets v Designer M&E Services [2018] EWCA Civ 2865 and Baxter v Doble [2023] EWHC 486 (KB) had been misunderstood.

Both were cases in which an unauthorised person purported to act in litigation for a litigant in person. That is materially different, because a litigant in person has a personal right to conduct litigation but no right to delegate that reserved activity to an unauthorised third party. In that setting, the question is whether the unauthorised person has assumed responsibility for tasks such as service, or has merely carried out mechanical or administrative acts. That is why Ndole treated the matter as one of fact and degree.

The Court of Appeal held that those decisions did not address the present case, where there is an authorised individual with power to delegate tasks while retaining responsibility. Properly understood, Ndole and Baxter support the proposition that responsibility is what matters. They do not establish that an unauthorised person within an authorised practice commits an offence whenever he or she performs a task falling within the conduct of litigation.

Importantly, the court did not overrule Baxter. On the contrary, it held that Baxter was not wrongly decided. It was simply concerned with a different situation, namely an unauthorised person acting for a litigant in person rather than for and on behalf of an authorised individual.

Supervision, not universal personal approval

A notable feature of the appeal was the respondents’ argument that, if an act fell within the conduct of litigation, an authorised individual had to direct and control it so closely that prior approval would generally be required before the act was done. The Court of Appeal rejected any such universal rule.

The court held that the 2007 Act does not require personal prior approval by the authorised individual for every formal step. Appropriate supervision depends on the circumstances. In some situations the degree of control and supervision will be high, and approval before action is taken may be necessary. In others, especially routine matters, a lower level of control may be sufficient. The court gave, as examples, regular meetings and sampling of work.

That aspect of the judgment is particularly important in practice. The court did not minimise the need for supervision. On the contrary, it emphasised that proper arrangements must be in place. But it held that the statute does not mandate a rigid model under which every claim form or every reserved step must be personally approved in advance by the authorised individual.

What falls within the conduct of litigation

The court also dealt with the second issue, namely the scope of the reserved activity itself. It declined to provide an exhaustive list of everything that falls within, or outside, the conduct of litigation. It said that the appeal had not equipped the court to draw a complete map of the field.

Even so, some points were made with reasonable clarity. Issuing proceedings is plainly within the definition. So too are formal ancillary functions such as service of documents. The more difficult area remains the second limb of the definition, namely “the commencement, prosecution and defence” of proceedings. The court deliberately did not attempt to settle its full reach on this appeal. That residual uncertainty remains important.

The Law Society had provided a list of seven categories said to be unlikely to fall within the statutory definition. Those points were not the subject of full adversarial argument, but the court treated them as common ground. Accordingly, the court indicated that the following were unlikely to fall within the statutory definition of “conduct of litigation”: pre-action work, giving legal advice in connection with proceedings, corresponding with the opposing party, gathering evidence, instructing and liaising with experts or counsel, signing a statement of truth in respect of a statement of case, and signing other documents which the CPR permit a legal representative to sign. The judgment should not, however, be read as laying down a final or exhaustive catalogue.

The law centres issue

The same analysis disposed of the law centres issue. The Court of Appeal held that a working model under which authorised lawyers supervise unauthorised caseworkers and retain responsibility for the conduct of litigation is not, without more, contrary to the 2007 Act. Because the court reached that conclusion on the ordinary construction of the Act, it did not need to determine the fallback arguments about section 23 transitional protection or the correctness of Khan.

The decision

The Court of Appeal allowed CILEX’s appeal.

It held that an unauthorised person may lawfully perform tasks falling within the scope of the conduct of litigation for and on behalf of an authorised individual, such as a solicitor or an appropriately authorised CILEX member, provided that the authorised individual retains responsibility for the tasks and has in place appropriate arrangements for supervision, management and control.

The source of that lawfulness is not that the unauthorised person becomes independently entitled to conduct litigation. It is that, in those circumstances, the unauthorised person is not the person carrying on the reserved legal activity. The authorised individual remains the person conducting the litigation.

The court therefore held that the distinction adopted below between supporting an authorised solicitor and conducting litigation under that solicitor’s supervision was wrong in law. Both may be lawful, if the authorised individual genuinely retains responsibility and the delegated work is done for and on behalf of that individual within an appropriate supervisory structure.

The underlying proceedings between Charles Russell Speechlys LLP and Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart had, by the time of the appeal, been compromised. Even so, the Court of Appeal treated the appeal as raising an issue of general significance.

Conclusion

This is a major decision for the practical organisation of litigation work in England and Wales. It restores a construction of the 2007 Act that fits the realities of modern practice. Many firms, legal service providers and law centres depend on supervised teams in which experienced but unauthorised staff take important procedural steps. The Court of Appeal held that the statute does not criminalise that model.

At the same time, the judgment does not protect nominal or merely formal supervision. Lady Justice Andrews captured the point in her short concurring judgment: the real question in any given case is whether the unauthorised person is in truth acting on behalf of the authorised individual. If responsibility has in reality been ceded, the decision will not protect the arrangement.

For solicitors, firms, law centres and insurers, the practical focus now shifts to governance and evidence. Clear identification of the authorised individual responsible for each matter, documented supervision arrangements, and evidence that reserved steps are undertaken within those arrangements will plainly matter. The judgment also supports a variable approach to supervision. Routine volume work and high risk complex litigation need not be supervised in exactly the same way, but each must be supervised appropriately.

For claimants and defendants, the decision reduces the scope for purely technical attacks based only on the fact that a non-authorised employee carried out a procedural act. But it does not remove all room for challenge. The boundary of the reserved activity remains imperfectly defined, especially in relation to the “commencement, prosecution and defence” of proceedings, and cases in which an unauthorised person is effectively running litigation independently will remain vulnerable.

The judgment also matters at a regulatory and policy level. One of its themes is the need for coherence between statutory interpretation, daily legal practice and the regulatory objectives of the 2007 Act, including access to justice and the maintenance of professional standards. The court was plainly alive to the sector wide disruption caused by the decision below, particularly in law centres and the not for profit sector. It also noted the unsatisfactory fact that official positions had shifted during the litigation itself, including the SRA’s December 2024 letter, which the court described as wrong in law.

Further Reading

• Overview of a Typical Litigation Claim (England and Wales, 2025)
• Court rules as to service
• Civil Courts in England and Wales
• The Loss of the Ability to Bring Litigation: Legal Principles, Consequences, and Remedies

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