Law Firm Training in London: Behaviour Change for SRA-Regulated Firms

What the SRA Codes of Conduct Actually Ask For

The SRA Standards and Regulations set the frame for every firm in England and Wales, and the frame is behavioural. The seven SRA Principles require solicitors to act with integrity (Principle 5), in a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion (Principle 6), and in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the profession (Principle 2). None of those is discharged by a policy document. Each of them describes what people do.

The Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs is more specific. Paragraph 1.5 reads: "You treat colleagues fairly and with respect. You do not bully or harass them or discriminate unfairly against them. If you are a manager you challenge behaviour that does not meet this standard." The last sentence is the one most firms underestimate. It is not a duty to hold a value, it is a duty to intervene, in the room, at the moment, and it lands on the people who supervise.

The firm-side obligations mirror it. Paragraph 1.6 of the Code of Conduct for Firms requires firms to treat those who work for and with them fairly and with respect. Paragraph 2.1 requires effective governance structures, arrangements, systems and controls. Paragraph 8.1 makes managers responsible for the firm's compliance with the Code, joint and several where management responsibility is shared.

The SRA's guidance Workplace environment: risks of failing to protect and support colleagues, first published on 7 February 2022 and updated on 4 May 2023, sets out what the regulator expects to see: a safe environment for people to raise concerns, concerns addressed promptly and constructively, and training for managers on dealing with concerns. It also states that seriousness is assessed with reference to the respective seniority of those involved and whether one person has control or influence over another's career.

• Principles 2, 5 and 6: public trust and confidence, integrity, and equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Solicitors' Code 1.5: treat colleagues fairly, and if you are a manager, challenge behaviour that falls short.
• Solicitors' Code 3.5 and 3.6: effective supervision, and competence of the people you manage.
• Solicitors' Code 7.7: report promptly anything reasonably believed capable of amounting to a serious breach.
• Firms' Code 1.6, 2.1 and 8.1: fair treatment, effective systems and controls, and manager responsibility for compliance.

The October 2024 Preventative Duty

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force on 26 October 2024. It inserted section 40A into the Equality Act 2010: "An employer (A) must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees of A in the course of their employment." The duty is anticipatory. It is not discharged by responding well after the event.

The consequences are concrete. Section 124A of the Equality Act 2010 allows an employment tribunal to increase a sexual harassment award by up to 25 per cent where the employer has contravened the duty, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission can enforce the duty as an unlawful act in its own right, without a claimant bringing a case. Our guide to harassment prevention training and the October 2024 duty covers the training implications in detail.

For law firms the duty sits on top of the SRA frame rather than beside it. The SRA's sexual misconduct guidance, published on 1 September 2022, states that it expects firms to foster a culture of zero tolerance of sexual misconduct, where staff feel that they can speak up freely and report matters to their firm and to the regulator. The guidance treats the abuse of an uneven power relationship, including implied threats to career advancement, as a marker of seriousness.

The SRA's thematic review of non-disclosure agreements in workplace complaints, published on 14 August 2023, shows how these matters travel. Of 25 firms visited, 14 had received workplace complaints about inappropriate behaviour over a five-year period, 112 complaints in total. Forty-seven ended in a settlement agreement containing an NDA. Ten were reported to the SRA. Only 12 per cent of the firms visited provided specific NDA training.

Why an E-Learning Module Does Not Move This

This is a structural problem, not a character problem. In a law firm the behaviours the SRA describes are wanted by almost everyone and produced by almost no system. Partners carry revenue responsibility. Appraisal runs on recorded hours. Challenge upward has a cost, and the cost is immediate and visible while the benefit is diffuse and later.

LawCare's Life in the Law 2025, a survey of 1,541 people working in the legal sector across the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man, open from 15 January to 21 March 2025, puts numbers on the constraint. Less than a third (31.3 per cent) of those with management responsibilities said their targets or billable hours were adjusted to take account of the time needed to manage others or to undertake appropriate training. Less than half (43.7 per cent) said the time and effort spent managing others was recognised in performance measurement. Over three quarters (78.7 per cent) were working over their contracted time.

The same survey measured psychological safety on a seven-question scale running from 7 to 35 and found an average of 18.0, in the lower half of the range. Nearly a fifth (19.5 per cent) had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination at work in the preceding twelve months. Only 54.6 per cent of those with managerial responsibilities had received training to support them in managing people, and 93 per cent thought such training should be mandatory.

Read those together and the diagnosis is not ignorance. Nobody in a City firm needs to be told that bullying is prohibited. The gap is between knowing the standard and performing it in a room where the person falling short bills more than you do.

COM-B: Name the Real Barrier Before Choosing the Intervention

Sidestream works from the COM-B model and the Behaviour Change Wheel (Michie, van Stralen and West, 2011). A behaviour happens when three things are present: capability, opportunity and motivation. The design question is which of the three is actually binding, and the answer changes the intervention completely. Our explainer sets out how the COM-B model works in practice.

An annual e-learning module works on one part of one component: the knowledge half of psychological capability. In most firms that part is already fine. What is missing is physical opportunity, because there is no adjusted time and no forum in the week where the conversation belongs; social opportunity, because raising it is the odd move rather than the expected one; and reflective motivation, because a considered judgement has been made that speaking will cost more than staying quiet.

Once the barrier is named that way, the intervention follows. Skill under pressure is not transferred by explanation. It is built by doing the thing, badly, several times, somewhere the cost of getting it wrong is zero. That is a rehearsal, not a briefing, and it is the difference between immersive training and e-learning.

How Sidestream Builds a Law Firm Programme

The method is immersive theatre with professional actors, applied to the firm's own situations. Scenarios are written from real material, anonymised carefully so that no individual feels exposed but specific enough that the population recognises the dynamics on the first line. Confidentiality agreements are signed before scenario work begins.

The rehearsal moments that recur across law firm engagements are consistent: the associate who has to challenge a partner's handling of a client matter; the supervisor who has to name a pattern in a colleague with a strong billing record; the trainee raising a concern about the person who signs their training record; the manager who witnesses something in the room and has three seconds to decide whether to speak; the appraisal conversation with someone whose numbers are excellent and whose behaviour is not.

In a controlled 2020 UCL study by co-founder Ben Laumann (n = 57), rehearsal with a role-play coach produced significantly better feedback delivery than an instructional slideshow or video, rated blind by two independent assessors. The productions behind that method are award-winning: The Death of Jane Doe was recognised at the CorpComms Awards, The Accused was recognised at the Goldsmiths Public Engagement Awards, and Top of the Cops sits alongside them. Sidestream has worked with the Metropolitan Police, UCL, the University of Cambridge, Bocconi, Goldsmiths, Imperial College London, the Innocence Project, TCS, WISE and HM Courts and Tribunals.

The same design carries into adjacent briefs: speak-up culture training where reporting routes exist on paper but not in practice, and psychological safety training in London where the team knows the concern and nobody says it.

Measurement, and Why It Matters Twice

Sidestream measures at Kirkpatrick Level 3: observed behaviour in real work, typically eight to twelve weeks after delivery, against a baseline taken during the diagnostic. Level 1 satisfaction and Level 2 recall are collected but are not the standard we report against. Our guide explains how to measure behaviour change without relying on self-report.

In a law firm this matters twice. Once because it tells you whether the programme worked. Once because it is the record. The preventative duty asks what steps an employer took, and a defensible answer describes behaviour, not attendance. The SRA's continuing competence approach points the same way: there is no fixed annual hours requirement, and solicitors are asked to reflect on their practice, identify learning needs, address them, and record and evaluate what they did. Behavioural measurement produces exactly that record.

Firms should expect the scrutiny to increase rather than ease. The SRA reported on 15 May 2026 that it had reviewed 8,955 reports about potential misconduct in the six months to 30 April 2026, 58 per cent more than in the same period two years earlier, and had passed 1,322 of them to its investigations team, a 41 per cent rise on the same comparison.

Working With Sidestream in London

Sidestream is based at 58 Malden Road, London NW5 3HG, and operates from London, Milan and Berlin. Law firm programmes are usually delivered in-house at the firm's offices or at a venue close to them, because the rehearsal layer needs a room that can be reconfigured rather than a fixed boardroom table. For firms in the Square Mile, our behaviour change consultancy in the City of London page covers the wider regulated-sector context.

Engagements are priced per engagement and include the diagnostic, scenario design, delivery with professional actors, a thirty to ninety day embedding plan built around the firm's own calendar, and Level 3 measurement. The single strongest predictor of a programme working is one hour with the senior sponsor before design begins, converting a topic brief ("improve our culture") into a behaviour brief ("in the next supervision meeting, the concern is named while the matter is still open").

The first step is a free thirty-minute working conversation. Bring the specific behaviour you are trying to move. We will tell you honestly whether Sidestream is the right fit or whether another provider would serve the brief better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does law firm training in London have to be SRA-accredited?

No. The SRA does not accredit training providers and sets no annual training hours requirement. Its continuing competence approach asks solicitors to reflect on their practice, identify learning needs, address them, and record and evaluate what they did. Firms must make sure their managers and employees are competent to carry out their role. What matters is evidence that competence actually improved, not a certificate from an approved list.

Which SRA rules does this kind of training relate to?

Principally paragraph 1.5 of the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, which requires you to treat colleagues fairly and, if you are a manager, to challenge behaviour that does not meet that standard. Alongside it sit paragraph 1.6 of the Code of Conduct for Firms, paragraph 2.1 on systems and controls, paragraph 8.1 on manager responsibility, and the SRA guidance on workplace environment updated on 4 May 2023.

What did the October 2024 duty change for law firms?

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force on 26 October 2024 and inserted section 40A into the Equality Act 2010, requiring employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. Section 124A allows a tribunal to increase compensation by up to 25 per cent where the duty has been contravened, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission can enforce it directly.

How is this different from bystander or harassment e-learning?

E-learning addresses knowledge, and in most firms knowledge is not the binding constraint. Under COM-B the missing components are usually opportunity and reflective motivation: no time in the week, no forum, and a well-founded sense that challenge upward is expensive. Rehearsal with professional actors builds the skill and shifts the norm, and it produces observable behaviour that a firm can measure and record.

Will partners actually attend?

They attend when the design respects the constraint. Sessions are built around the firm's own calendar, run in blocks a fee earner can realistically commit to, and rehearse situations partners recognise immediately. The strongest predictor of attendance is a brief written in behaviour language by the senior sponsor before design begins, so the value is visible before the diary request lands.

Do you work with firms outside the Magic Circle?

Yes. The regulatory frame is identical for a twelve-partner firm and a global one, and so are the mechanics: revenue responsibility, hours-based appraisal, and a real cost to speaking upward. Scale changes the format rather than the design. Smaller firms typically start with a single cohort; larger firms run multi-cohort programmes across an intake, a department or a practice group.

Related Sidestream Guides

• behaviour change consultancy in the City of London
• harassment prevention training and the October 2024 duty
• speak-up culture training
• psychological safety training in London
• how the COM-B model works
• how to measure behaviour change
• immersive training and e-learning

Sources: SRA Principles, Solicitors Regulation Authority · SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs (paragraphs 1.5, 3.5, 3.6, 7.7) · SRA Code of Conduct for Firms (paragraphs 1.6, 2.1, 8.1) · SRA guidance: Workplace environment, risks of failing to protect and support colleagues (updated 4 May 2023) · SRA Workplace Culture Thematic Review (8 February 2022) · SRA Sexual misconduct guidance (1 September 2022) · SRA Thematic Review: The use of Non Disclosure Agreements in workplace complaints (14 August 2023) · SRA continuing competence (updated 2 April 2025) · SRA news: New data reveals significant rise in reports and investigations (15 May 2026) · Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, section 1 (inserting Equality Act 2010 section 40A) · Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, section 2 · Equality Act 2010, section 124A (compensation uplift, up to 25 per cent) · LawCare, Life in the Law 2025 (1,541 responses, survey open 15 January to 21 March 2025)