Compliance & Regulation

Leading law firm Womble Bond Dickinson has been rebuked for providing a banking facility to a client by receiving and paying out more than £2m that did not relate to any legal work it was doing.

Legal regulators should allow unregulated firms to test their ideas in regulatory sandboxes set up to foster innovation, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said.

Lawyers must be able to report “mini-bullying moments” without fear that things will “go nuclear”, the global director of inclusion at Clifford Chance has said.

There has been a 9% increase in the number of complaints to law firms last year, but they continue to resolve eight out of 10 themselves, according to official statistics.

A conveyancing paralegal who tried to cover up her mistake in not sending an updated plan to the buyers’ solicitor has been banned from working in the profession.

Little more than a third (37%) of barristers, chambers and firms regulated by the Bar Standards Board are fully complying with its rules on price and service transparency, it has emerged.

An assistant solicitor who took over a firm after the principal was struck off allowed her to keep practising under her maiden name, use the firm’s office and be sole signatory on its bank accounts.

A barrister who sits as a tribunal chair for the Nursing and Midwifery Council is a ‘worker’ and entitled to holiday pay, an employment tribunal has ruled, opening the door to thousands of other claims.

The Legal Ombudsman is taking five months just to pass any new complaints to an investigator as it struggles to cope with the impact of Covid-19.

A solicitor has been rebuked for trying to include a ban on her former employer referring her to any regulatory authority as part of a settlement of disputes between the two.