Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP: Supervised Delegation Is Lawful [2026] EWCA Civ 369

Detailed Assessment — 2026-03-31

The Court of Appeal held that unauthorised staff may perform delegated litigation tasks where an authorised individual retains genuine responsibility and proper supervision and control.

Overview

Court: Court of Appeal (Civil Division)

Judges: Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, Sir Colin Birss, Chancellor of the High Court, and Andrews LJ

Date: 31 March 2026

Citation: [2026] EWCA Civ 369

Appeal from: [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB)

The Court of Appeal has resolved the uncertainty created by the High Court decision in Mazur. An unauthorised employee may perform any task falling within the conduct of litigation for and on behalf of an authorised individual, provided that the authorised individual retains responsibility and appropriate arrangements for direction, management, supervision and control are in place.

The court rejected the distinction previously drawn between an unauthorised person merely “supporting” an authorised solicitor and conducting litigation under that solicitor’s supervision. Both can be lawful. The real question is who is directing, controlling and taking professional responsibility for the work.

The decision restores the long-established model under which solicitors and other authorised litigators delegate work to paralegals, trainees and other unqualified staff. It does not, however, permit an unauthorised person to run litigation independently while an authorised individual provides only nominal oversight.

Background

Charles Russell Speechlys LLP brought a claim against former clients, Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart, for unpaid fees exceeding £50,000. Its instructed solicitors, Goldsmith Bowers Solicitors, used an unqualified senior litigation executive, Mr Middleton, to undertake substantial work on the claim. That work included taking instructions, drafting and submitting the claim through Money Claims Online, serving statements of case and instructing counsel.

Mr Middleton had previously been suspended from practice as a solicitor. The Solicitors Regulation Authority had permitted Goldsmith Bowers to employ him, subject to supervision by an authorised solicitor, Mr Ashall.

Mrs Mazur and Mr Stuart argued that Mr Middleton had unlawfully conducted litigation contrary to section 14 of the Legal Services Act 2007. The first-instance decisions took different routes. The matter eventually reached the High Court, where Sheldon J held that an unauthorised employee could support an authorised solicitor but could not conduct litigation under supervision. That judgment caused immediate concern across solicitors’ firms, CILEX practices, law centres and other organisations whose service models depend on supervised delegation.

CILEX appealed. The Law Society and the SRA were joined, and the Legal Services Board, the Law Centres Network and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers intervened.

The statutory question

The Legal Services Act 2007 identifies the “conduct of litigation” as a reserved legal activity. Section 14 makes it an offence for a person to carry on a reserved legal activity unless entitled to do so. The conduct of litigation is defined in paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 as:

issuing proceedings;
the commencement, prosecution and defence of proceedings; and
performing ancillary functions in relation to proceedings.

The appeal turned on the relationship between two parts of the statutory language. “Conduct of litigation” identifies the relevant tasks. The words “carry on” determine who, in substance, is directing, controlling and accepting responsibility for those tasks.

The Court of Appeal held that those concepts must not be collapsed into one. The person physically performing a task is not necessarily the person carrying on the reserved legal activity.

The Court of Appeal’s decision

Sir Colin Birss, giving the leading judgment, reviewed the history of delegation from nineteenth-century authorities through the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and the current statutory regime. The consistent position was that solicitors could delegate work to competent clerks and employees while remaining answerable to the client and the court.

The court considered that Parliament must have been aware of this widespread and regulated practice when enacting the 2007 Act. Nothing in the Act or its preparatory materials showed an intention to abolish it. Such an intention would also have cut across the statutory objectives of access to justice, consumer protection, competition and a strong and diverse legal profession.

At paragraph 162, the court held that “conduct of litigation” refers to the tasks, whereas “carry on” refers to direction, control and responsibility. It followed that an unauthorised employee performing delegated litigation tasks for an authorised individual does not personally carry on the reserved legal activity where the authorised individual remains responsible.

The court summarised its conclusions at paragraph 187:

the practice of properly supervised delegation is longstanding and lawful;
the criminal prohibition in section 14 must be construed narrowly;
unauthorised staff may perform any task within the conduct of litigation for an authorised individual who retains responsibility;
appropriate direction, management, supervision and control are required;
the necessary degree of control depends on the circumstances; and
universal prior approval of every step is not required.

The High Court had therefore been wrong to treat “supporting” an authorised solicitor as lawful but “conducting litigation under supervision” as prohibited. The appeal was allowed.

Responsibility must be real

The result is not that supervision can be reduced to a name on the file. The authorised individual must retain both formal responsibility and the professional responsibilities identified in section 1(3) of the 2007 Act. Those include independence, integrity, acting in the client’s best interests, maintaining proper standards and complying with duties to the court.

The arrangements must be appropriate to the work and the person performing it. A competent and experienced employee working within a controlled process may require less immediate oversight than an inexperienced trainee handling a complex or unusual step. The court left the detailed regulatory requirements to the regulators because a single model cannot sensibly fit every practice area and every employee.

Andrews LJ added an important factual safeguard at paragraph 198. If the unauthorised person is genuinely acting for and on behalf of the authorised individual, it is the authorised individual who conducts the litigation. If that is not the reality, the unauthorised person may commit an offence.

The test is therefore substantive. Job titles, file-opening records and standard supervision clauses will not cure a working model in which the unqualified person has, in truth, assumed independent responsibility.

What falls within the conduct of litigation?

The court did not attempt an exhaustive definition. It confirmed that issuing proceedings is a narrow and formal step. Ancillary functions are also limited to formal steps, with service of a statement of case given as an example.

The precise scope of “the commencement, prosecution and defence” of proceedings was left unresolved. There are conflicting first-instance decisions about whether preparing a witness statement falls within that limb.

The parties did, however, agree that the following activities are unlikely to fall within the statutory definition:

pre-litigation work;
giving legal advice in connection with proceedings;
corresponding with an opponent;
gathering evidence;
instructing and liaising with experts and counsel;
signing a statement of truth for a statement of case; and
signing other documents which the CPR permits a legal representative to sign.

Those examples are useful but should not be treated as an exhaustive safe list. Firms must still consider the particular task and the surrounding arrangements.

Ndole and Baxter

The Court of Appeal explained why Ndole Assets Ltd v Designer M&E Services UK Ltd and Baxter v Doble did not determine the present issue.

In each case an unauthorised person acted for a litigant in person. A litigant’s personal right to conduct their own litigation cannot be delegated. The issue was therefore whether the unauthorised provider had assumed responsibility for a litigation task or had merely performed a mechanical act.

That is materially different from an authorised litigator delegating work to an employee. In the latter situation there is a person legally capable of retaining responsibility and carrying on the reserved activity. Baxter remains relevant to unauthorised providers acting for litigants in person, but it does not prevent supervised delegation within an authorised practice.

Practical implications for Costs Lawyers

Costs Lawyers who are authorised to conduct litigation can continue to use paralegals and other unauthorised staff within an appropriately managed practice. The judgment is particularly relevant to detailed assessment work involving the issue of costs-only proceedings, service of notices and bills, applications for default costs certificates and formal court filings.

The practical focus should be on evidence of responsibility and supervision:

identify the authorised individual responsible for each litigated matter;
record the scope of delegated authority;
use written procedures for routine filings and clear escalation triggers;
match the level of supervision to the employee’s competence and the risk of the task;
ensure absence and holiday arrangements preserve effective responsibility;
audit compliance rather than relying on a supervision policy that is not followed; and
retain records showing review of material strategic or unusual decisions.

Costs recovery may also be affected if work is performed unlawfully. The Court of Appeal’s narrow construction of the offence reduces the risk created by the High Court judgment, but it does not remove the need to demonstrate that the authorised individual genuinely carried on the litigation.

Practical implications for Litigation Practitioners

Solicitors’ firms do not need an authorised person to press every button or approve every routine step in advance. Systems and general instructions can lawfully permit experienced staff to undertake standard tasks, including commencement of routine claims, where professional responsibility remains with the authorised individual.

Practitioners should nevertheless review operating models in which:

one authorised person is responsible for an unmanageable number of files or staff;
the supervisor is unavailable for extended periods without effective cover;
employees make significant strategic decisions without escalation;
supervision exists only retrospectively or on paper; or
client and court communications imply that an unauthorised employee is personally responsible for the litigation.

The judgment also makes clear that a litigant in person cannot avoid the reserved-activity regime by appointing an unauthorised agent. The lawful delegation principle depends upon an authorised individual being the person who actually carries on the litigation.

Conclusion

Mazur restores a workable and historically orthodox interpretation of the Legal Services Act 2007. Unauthorised staff may undertake the full range of delegated litigation tasks, including formal steps, where they act for an authorised individual who retains genuine responsibility and exercises proper supervision and control.

The dividing line is not between “assistance” and “conduct under supervision”. It is between delegated work carried out within an authorised person’s practice and litigation for which an unauthorised person has assumed responsibility in substance.

For regulated practices, the immediate task is not wholesale restructuring. It is ensuring that responsibility, delegation and supervision are clear, proportionate and evidenced.

Citation

Mazur & Anor v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2026] EWCA Civ 369. Read the full judgment at The National Archives.

Related Specialist Support

Costs Budgeting and Detailed Assessment: Precedent H, dispute documents, negotiations and assessment strategy.
Bills of Costs: Clear, defensible traditional and electronic bills prepared for recovery.
Costs Lawyer Support: Direct help with costs procedure, strategy, drafting and advocacy.