Black and Muslim solicitors have accused Britain’s legal watchdog of racial discrimination and want to break away to establish their own watchdog body.

The Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) and the Society of Black Lawyers have obtained figures that show that the Law Society’s regulatory arm is more than twice as likely to investigate misconduct allegations against ethnic minority solicitors than it is against white lawyers.

They claim that the disproportionate attention is fuelled by discrimination, rather than by suspect practices.

Figures published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2006 showed that 62 per cent of investigations related to nonwhite lawyers.

The black and Muslim groups are looking into whether they can break away from supervision by the Law Society. From next year the Law Society will no longer be able to compel particular interest groups to sign up to it as their representative body.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, is to raise the issue with Antony Townsend, the chief executive of the SRA, this week.

Peter Herbert, the chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers, said: “These figures are a prima facie case of racial discrimation. Clearly this form of regulation is not working and we are looking at establishing a separate, independent watchdog for ethnic minorities.”

Mahmud al-Rashid, a spokesman for the AML, said: “The figures show there must be discrimination at the SRA. We are demanding an immediate investigation.”

But a spokesman for the SRA said that it was the statutory regulatory body for all solicitors and it was not possible for those holding themselves out as solicitors to be regulated by anyone else.

She said that the figures in question were published last year and seemed large because the they were part of a wider category that included those of mixed race or “other”.

She added that black and ethnic minority solicitors tended to be disproportionately concentrated in the small or sole-practitioner firms, and these historically were the ones that tended to be more likely than larger firms to get into trouble.

The row was ignited when a leading ethnic minority law firm asked the SRA to investigate a white employee who was alleged to have committed fraud and made racist comments about Iranians. The SRA began examining the incidents and eventually concluded that the woman had made racist remarks. But then to the surprise of her bosses, it dropped the case on the basis that she was pregnant.

By contrast, an Asian lawyer from the same firm had to undergo a month-long investigation when he was falsely accused of overcharging a client £18. The firm spent £14,000 defending its employee.

When Mr Vaz heard of the cases, he asked the SRA to provide figures on its investigations into black and Asian solicitors. He found that, in 2006, 62 per cent of investigations were launched against nonwhite, mixed and “other” lawyers, a group which represents just 22 per cent of the total population of solicitors.

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