Solicitor in GB-ENW
What this register publishes today, what is missing, and the smallest change that would move it up.
What was found
A data sharing web service refreshed every 24 hours, available by subscription with a key, carrying the firms the authority regulates. Individual solicitors remain a consumer search box: the thing a client actually wants to check, which is whether this named person is a solicitor, is the half that is not in the feed.
What it publishes
| Check | Answer | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A public page per licence | Yes | Gives a reader something to look at and a checker something to archive and attest against. |
| A bulk export | Yes | Lets a consumer hold the whole list instead of fetching one licence at a time, and lets anyone hash it. |
| Machine readable | Yes | A CSV or JSON rather than a page built for a browser. Decides whether checking can be automated at all. |
| Signed | No | Makes the file impossible to forge or mirror convincingly. Nothing reaches grade A without it. |
The next step
Sign the file
The export exists and is machine readable, which is the expensive part. What remains is a key and one DNS record on a domain the authority already controls, which makes the file impossible to forge and takes this row to grade A.
A grade describes a register, not the authority behind it and not the quality of its supervision. An authority can run an excellent register and still sit at grade D because it is a search form.
If this row is wrong, it gets corrected with the correction published beside it. The index is useful only if it can be argued with. Tell the lab.