.4 Status of this practice note
Practice notes are issued by the Law Society for the use and benefit of its members. They represent the Law Society's view of good practice in a particular area. They are not intended to be the only standard of good practice that solicitors can follow. You are not required to follow them, but doing so will make it easier to account to oversight bodies for your actions.
Practice notes are not legal advice, nor do they necessarily provide a defence to complaints of misconduct or of inadequate professional service. While care has been taken to ensure that they are accurate, up to date and useful, the Law Society will not accept any legal liability in relation to them.
For queries or comments on this practice note contact the Law Society's Practice Advice Service.
1.5 Terminology in this practice note
Must - A specific requirement in legislation or of a principle, rule, outcome or other mandatory provision in the SRA Handbook. You must comply, unless there are specific exemptions or defences provided for in relevant legislation or the SRA Handbook.
Should -
Outside of a regulatory context, good practice for most situations in the Law Society's view.
In the case of the SRA Handbook, an indicative behaviour or other non-mandatory provision (such as may be set out in notes or guidance).
These may not be the only means of complying with legislative or regulatory requirements and there may be situations where the suggested route is not the best possible route to meet the needs of your client. However, if you do not follow the suggested route, you should be able to justify to oversight bodies why the alternative approach you have taken is appropriate, either for your practice, or in the particular retainer.
May - A non-exhaustive list of options for meeting your obligations or running your practice. Which option you choose is determined by the profile of the individual practice, client or retainer. You may be required to justify why this was an appropriate option to oversight bodies.
SRA Code - SRA Code of Conduct 2011
SRA - Solicitors Regulation Authority
LSB - Legal Services Board
2. SRA Principles
There are ten mandatory principles which apply to all those the SRA regulates and to all aspects of practice. The principles can be found in the SRA Handbook.
The principles apply to solicitors or managers of authorised bodies who are practising from an office outside the UK. They also apply if you are a lawyer-controlled body practising from an office outside the UK.
3. What is cloud computing?
3.1 Characteristics of cloud computing
Cloud computing is computing as a service: someone else owns and runs the hardware, and often the software, which you access and operate via the internet.
Cloud computing services normally have the following characteristics:
you only pay for the computing resources you use and you have immediate control over the amount you use, scaling up or down quickly (and sometimes automatically)
costs and prices are kept down because you're making use of shared resources
to maximise efficiency, your applications and your data are likely to be automatically moved around within and between data centres, so the location of your data at any one time can be uncertain
cloud services are highly standardised at both a technical level and in the terms and conditions that they offer to users.