For a few months, Mazur looked like the judgment that might blow a hole in the way litigation is actually delivered in England and Wales. The High Court’s 2025 ruling was read by many as meaning that non-authorised staff could not carry on the conduct of litigation, even under supervision. That sent an obvious jolt through firms built around team-based delivery. The Court of Appeal has now pulled things back from the brink.
In doing so, it has restored a view of litigation practice that most lawyers would recognise instantly. Cases are not always run by one authorised fee earner sitting alone at a desk doing every step personally. They are often run by teams. Solicitors and other authorised lawyers take the decisions, exercise judgment and hold responsibility. Paralegals, litigation assistants and other support staff do a huge amount of the work that keeps files moving. That is just how the system functions.
The Court of Appeal rejected the idea that every single act forming part of the conduct of litigation has to be carried out personally by an authorised individual. Instead, it said that where an authorised person is carrying on the conduct of litigation, that person must direct and control the activity and take responsibility for it. An unauthorised person can assist. Sensible, realistic, and a lot closer to the world outside court than the first-instance judgment.
That first judgment caused real alarm for good reason. This was not some dry argument about statutory wording with no practical consequences. It raised the possibility that firms might be operating on a model that was potentially unlawful. That is enough to make any managing partner, COLP or litigation head sit bolt upright.
And that is why the fallout should not be brushed aside now that the appeal has landed. Somewhere between the High Court ruling and the Court of Appeal’s reversal, there will have been firms that panicked. There will have been risk meetings, nervous emails, hasty decisions and probably more than a few awkward conversations with staff. One wonders how many paralegals had work taken off them, how many CILEX professionals found their roles suddenly under scrutiny, and how many litigation teams were quietly restructured in the name of caution.
We do not have a body count. No one is going to publish a neat spreadsheet showing how many people were sidelined because a first-instance decision sent shockwaves through the profession. But it would be naive to think nothing happened. This was a judgment interpreted by many as striking at the heart of modern litigation delivery. Firms do not simply shrug at something like that and carry on as normal.
CILEX’s reaction after the appeal tells its own story. This was described as the most consequential judgment for legal services in recent history. CILEx Regulation said it understood the considerable distress and uncertainty caused by the earlier ruling. Those are the sort of words that point to a profession that had been left badly rattled.
That makes the response of the SRA and the Law Society worth revisiting.
To be fair, neither could ignore the High Court ruling. A judgment on a reserved legal activity, with possible criminal consequences in the background, was bound to be treated seriously. No responsible regulator or representative body was going to wave it away.
The Law Society’s October 2025 guidance was plainly trying to help. It set out the High Court’s position, but in doing so it also accepted the formulation that a non-authorised person could not carry out the conduct of litigation under supervision. It tried to soften the blow by stressing that non-authorised staff could still provide extensive support and that authorised persons could still delegate tasks while retaining responsibility. But the headline point had already landed. For many readers, the warning came first and the nuance second.
The SRA’s messaging was not much calmer. Its line was that the High Court judgment did not change the law, that non-authorised individuals could support litigation, but that only an authorised individual should be conducting it. Firms, in effect, were left to work out what that meant on Monday morning. In a climate of uncertainty, that was always likely to produce defensive behaviour.
Looking back now, admittedly with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the obvious question is whether either body could have been clearer that this was a first-instance judgment of huge significance, that an appeal was likely, and that firms should resist knee-jerk upheaval while the position was still in play. Not ignore it. Not dismiss it. But avoid tearing up team structures overnight on the strength of a ruling that had not yet faced appellate scrutiny.
That is where the frustration sits. By the time the Court of Appeal arrived with a more workable answer, some of the damage may already have been done.
And the post-appeal messaging only sharpens that point. Once the Court of Appeal had spoken, the tone changed. The SRA welcomed the clear direction. The Law Society explained that the appeal judgment confirmed an authorised person can delegate tasks within litigation to an unauthorised person, provided responsibility stays where it should. In other words, the profession finally got the reassurance it had been craving all along: the sky has not fallen in.
Quite a lot of people could have done with hearing that, loudly and repeatedly, several months earlier.
There is another layer to this as well. Mazur was never just about supervision and statutory interpretation. It also touched a raw nerve about status and professional identity. Read in its broadest form, the first-instance ruling carried an unmistakable subtext: that meaningful litigation work had to be hoarded by the authorised few, while everyone else hovered around the edges doing admin. That was never likely to sit comfortably with a sector that depends heavily on skilled CILEX professionals, experienced paralegals and supervised non-solicitor staff.
The Court of Appeal’s approach reflects how legal services are actually delivered. Modern practice is collaborative. It is layered. It relies on teams. Any regulatory or judicial analysis that pretends otherwise is not defending standards. It is misdescribing reality.
None of that means firms get to relax. The Court of Appeal has not handed out a free pass for vague supervision. If anything, it has drawn the line more clearly. Delegation is fine. Responsibility still sits with the authorised person. If firms cannot explain who is directing the work, who is controlling it and who owns the key decisions, Mazur will not save them.
So yes, as you were. But only up to a point.
