Published methodology

How FirmProof tests — and how often it's right

Compliance tools usually ask you to trust a black box. We publish every check we run, how it decides, and our measured accuracy against a labelled benchmark of real law-firm websites. If we wouldn't show you the working, we shouldn't be checking yours.

Check your own site — free scanNo account needed · public pages only · nothing stored

Sources last verified: 2026-08-12.1 — official SRA links are cited in each section.

Our measured accuracy — published, not promised

real law-firm websites in our labelled benchmark corpus

519

evidence-backed expected results the detectors are scored against

0.8%

disagreement rate in the last scored run (1 of 133 labelled checks)

How the benchmark works: we scan real, public law-firm websites and record an expected result for every check where the evidence proves the answer — an excerpt showing the SRA number, the badge embed in the page source, the complaints page URL. Detector releases must score under a 5% disagreement gate against those labels before they ship. When a real site exposes a weakness (a phrasing we missed, a bot-blocked crawl), it becomes a permanent regression test. Last updated 11 August 2026; ruleset 2026-08-12.1.

What we will never say

Wording is part of the method. Automated checks can prove what a page shows; they cannot certify a firm. So, as a matter of policy, FirmProof never says:

“Your firm is compliant” — compliance is a legal judgement, not a scan result
“SRA approved / certified” — we are independent and unaffiliated
“Guaranteed protection from fines” — nobody can promise that, including consultants
“Compliance score: 87%” — a single number hides exactly what matters

Instead every check returns one of four honest states — Action needed (high-confidence gap, evidence attached), Review needed (signals found, human judgement required), Clear ("no issue detected by this check" — scoped, dated), or Unable to verify (we couldn't read enough of your site to say — and we tell you that rather than guessing).

Every check we run, documented

Each check is tied to the official SRA source it tests against, with the date a human last verified that source. The SRA pages themselves are monitored daily — see the public source-watch log.

SRA number present on the website

high severity

The firm's SRA number must appear on the website (Rule 4.1). Checked in the footer and common pages; a mismatch against the configured number is a separate finding.

SRA.TR.4.1.NUMBER · Deterministic — pattern-based, no AI judgement · SRA Transparency Rules — Rule 4.1 (verified 2026-08-11)

SRA digital badge rendered and clickable

high severity

The SRA digital badge (clickable logo) must be displayed prominently (Rule 4.1). Detection covers the official embed patterns; visibility and prominence beyond presence is Review Needed.

SRA.TR.4.1.BADGE · Deterministic — pattern-based, no AI judgement · SRA — Clickable logo / digital badge (verified 2026-08-11)

Complaints procedure discoverable

high severity

Firms with a website must publish their complaints procedure (Rule 2). Checked via complaint/client-care links in navigation, footer and sitemap; broken or absent targets are flagged.

SRA.TR.2.PAGE · Deterministic — pattern-based, no AI judgement · SRA Transparency Rules — Rule 2 (verified 2026-08-11)

Complaints content covers the Legal Ombudsman

high severity

Complaints information must explain how and when a complaint can be made to the Legal Ombudsman (Rule 2).

SRA.TR.2.LEO · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA Transparency Rules — Rule 2 (verified 2026-08-11)

Complaints content covers complaining to the SRA

high severity

Complaints information must explain how and when a complaint can be made to the SRA (Rule 2).

SRA.TR.2.SRA · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA Transparency Rules — Rule 2 (verified 2026-08-11)

Price information for applicable services

high severity

For specified services the site must publish total, average or range cost, or a clear cost basis (Rule 1). Scoped by the services the firm confirms it offers — never inferred from site text alone (spec §7.3).

SRA.TR.1.PRICE · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

VAT treatment stated

high severity

Price information must state whether VAT is included (Rule 1).

SRA.TR.1.VAT · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Basis for charges stated

medium severity

Where a fixed price is not given, the basis for charges (e.g. hourly rates, fixed fee, estimate basis) must be stated for applicable services (Rule 1).

SRA.TR.1.BASIS · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Experience and qualifications of the team

medium severity

Price information must describe the experience and qualifications of anyone carrying out the work and their supervisors (Rule 1). Signposting from the service page to team information counts; adequacy is human judgement.

SRA.TR.1.PEOPLE · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Likely disbursements described

medium severity

Likely disbursements (e.g. search fees, court fees, Land Registry fees) and their cost or range must be described for applicable services (Rule 1).

SRA.TR.1.DISB · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Included and excluded services stated

medium severity

Price information should make clear what services are included and, where relevant, what is excluded or charged additionally (Rule 1). This is a semantic judgement — the detector only surfaces signals.

SRA.TR.1.INCL · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Key stages of the service stated

medium severity

The key stages of the matter should be set out for applicable services (Rule 1). Adequacy of the description is human judgement.

SRA.TR.1.STAGES · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Likely timescales stated

medium severity

Likely timescales for the key stages should be stated for applicable services (Rule 1). Ambiguity is resolved to review, never to a breach claim.

SRA.TR.1.TIME · Hybrid — automated signals, human-labelled judgement · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

CFA/DBA client-payment circumstances

medium severity

Where services may be provided under a conditional fee or damages-based agreement, the circumstances in which clients may have to make payments themselves must be stated (Rule 1). Only checked when the firm confirms it uses such funding.

SRA.TR.1.CFA · Runs only when your firm confirms it applies · SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance (verified 2026-08-11)

Previously passing required evidence disappeared

high severity

A required disclosure that passed in an earlier scan is missing or materially changed — the drift signal that makes weekly monitoring worth paying for.

SITE.REGRESS.REQ · Deterministic — pattern-based, no AI judgement · SRA Transparency Rules (verified 2026-08-11)

How the crawl behaves on your site

Public pages only — we never sign in, submit forms, or touch client portals.
Polite by design: rate-limited to roughly a page per second, and robots.txt is respected on free scans.
Reads linked PDFs (where many firms publish fees) and renders JavaScript-built pages when plain fetching isn't enough.
Every finding stores its evidence — URL, excerpt, content hash, screenshot for serious issues — so you can reproduce it yourself.
If most of a site can't be read (some firms block all automated visitors), checks return "unable to verify" rather than fake findings.

See the methodology run against your own site

The free scan uses the same detectors, the same evidence discipline, and the same honest result classes.

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