What must a law firm email signature say for the SRA? Rule 4.2 of the SRA Transparency Rules says an authorised body's letterhead and emails must show its SRA authorisation number and the words "authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority". A firm that is a company or an LLP must also meet the Companies Act disclosure rules. This guide covers both, and the practical problem of getting the wording onto every email a firm sends.
The SRA Transparency Rules are short, and the email rule is one sentence:
An authorised body's letterhead and e-mails must show its SRA authorisation number and the words "authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority".
Two details are easy to get wrong:
The same rules ask for other things that live on the website rather than in an email, such as the SRA's digital badge (rule 4.1) and the complaints procedure (rule 2.1). Do not try to cram those into a footer.
Most firms trade as a limited company or an LLP, and then the general company law rules apply too: registered name, registered number, registered office address and the part of the UK where the firm is registered. Our guide to UK email footer legal requirements sets those out line by line. A combined footer for an LLP might read:
Example Law LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA number 000000). Registered in England and Wales, number OC000000. Registered office: 1 High Street, Anytown AB1 2CD.
Your compliance officer should approve the final wording. The point here is that it is one block of fixed text, the same on every email the firm sends.
The wording is rarely the problem. Coverage is:
The dependable approach is to add the footer centrally, as mail leaves the firm, rather than relying on each person and each device. Footer365 does that in Exchange Online, so mail from Outlook, phones and shared mailboxes is covered alike.
Many firms keep a lighter signature on internal mail. Footer365 decides an email is internal only when every recipient is in one of the firm's own domains, and treats any email with even one outside recipient as external, so a client never receives the internal version by accident. Whether internal mail also needs the regulatory line is a question for your compliance officer; our guide to internal and external signatures shows how to set up either answer.
Most firms also add a confidentiality notice. The SRA rule does not require one, and a notice cannot undo a misdirected email, but it does tell an accidental recipient what is expected of them. Keep it short and put it after the regulatory wording, which is the part that must be there.
Check five recent client emails from different people, including one sent from a phone and one from a shared mailbox, against rule 4.2. If any are missing the wording, a central signature fixes all of them at once, and the free trial lets you prove it on a pilot group before the whole firm.
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