Hundreds of foreign lawyers who come to England every year to practise as solicitors face tough new curbs that law firms say will undermine London's position in the global legal market.

At the same time, the moves by the Solicitors Regulation Authority are being attacked as racially discriminatory because they will hit hardest foreign lawyers who come from "unfashionable Commonwealth countries".

The authority, which is in charge of solicitors' standards and education, wants hundreds of foreign lawyers who arrive each year to transfer to the English solicitors' profession to do one year's supervision before they can qualify as solicitors.

But the plans, expected to be considered by the authority this week, have caused concern among City law firms and black lawyers. A leading QC has given warning that the plans could breach race relations and competition laws.

The College of Law, the biggest training institution for lawyers in the UK, says that the plans could not only hit foreign lawyers who will find it difficult to find supervision placements but will also put London at a disadvantage in the global market for recruiting lawyers.

At present, lawyers from abroad, including from Scotland, have to take a qualifying transfer test before then can practise as English solicitors.

Now, amid growing concern about standards, the authority is proposing that they must find a placement with a law firm and be supervised for a year before they can qualify.

Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, said: "We are not against moves to drive up standards and indeed have raised our own concerns about poor standards among some of the lawyers qualifying as solicitors.

"But these measures are being introduced without warning or discussion and in their present form could have a disastrous effect on recruitment to the London legal market.

"Instead of coming to London, hundreds of lawyers who qualify each year to practise here will go to New York where they can just take the exam and become members of the New York Bar."

The College has taken a legal opinion from a leading QC, Rabinder Singh, who has said that in his view, what is proposed on the face of it is "potentially in breach of the Race Relations Act and the Competition Act".

Stephen Denyer, a senior partner from Allen & Overy, said: "My big concern about this move is that it will undermine the position of the UK in the global market for post-graduate legal education.

"The best young global lawyers from, say, India will be handed another reason to go to the States, do a US master of law degree and take the New York Bar. Thereafter they will be tempted to join a US based firm."

The Solicitors' Regulation Authority, which is responsible for standards and training in the profession, wants to ensure that all lawyers who the current test to transfer to the English solicitors' profession are up to standard and "understand and are able to sustain commitment to the rule of law".

"The purpose of the review [of the test] is to ensure that those who qualify under the regulatiosn have the knowledge and skills required for practising as a solicitor of England," it says.

It will also provide assurances about the "standards and integrity" of the qualifying test itself.

The plans will heighten tension between the authority and the Society of Black Lawyers. The society is already in dispute with the SRA and is threatening legal action over its pattern of investigations of black and ethnic minority law firms.

Figures appear to show a disproportionate number of investigations involving such firms. But the authority argues that small firms, in which black and ethnic minority lawyers tend to work, are more likely to be vulnerable to investigation than big ones; and that such lawyers may not be adequately prepared for the regulatory environment.

The College of Law cites the case of one overseas lawyer who took the qualifying test five times, achieving an average mark of 34 per cent.

Mr Savage said: "He sat the examination for the sixth time last year. Three days afterwards, the candidate told us that he had pased the exam with another institution. We nonetheless marked the paper and he had still failed, with a mark of 32 per cent. In one paper he only got six per cent."

Action did need to be taken to monitor standards and impose more rigorous requirements on colleges, he said. But the current proposals would be damaging, without necessarily achieving that consistency in standards.

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