Compliance & Regulation
Lady Chief Justice speaks out in support of cab-rank rule
The Lady Chief Justice yesterday spoke out in support of the cab-rank rule, arguing that without it “law and justice become an arbitrary concept”.
Strike-off for solicitor who lied to SRA about firm’s closure
A solicitor who lied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority after failing to renew his firm’s professional indemnity insurance has been struck off.
Short suspension for junior solicitor who groped colleague
A male solicitor who groped and propositioned a female colleague at his firm’s Christmas party has been suspended for three months.
Money laundering solicitor finally pays off confiscation order
A struck-off solicitor and money launderer has finally satisfied the £716,719 confiscation order made against him in 2017, after facing a return to jail.
Don’t put up a barrier with your business, in-house lawyers told
In-house lawyers should not think they are special because of their wider duties to the court as this risks alienating them from their business colleagues, it was claimed yesterday.
Community order for disbarred barrister over antisemitic blog posts
A former barrister who was disbarred for antisemitic and racist tweets has now been handed a nine-month community order for grossly offensive antisemitic material posted on his blog.
Hefty AML fine for firm that facilitated vendor fraud
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has handed out three more hefty fines for anti-money laundering failures, one for a firm that facilitated a vendor fraud as a result.
Solicitor jailed after falling for scam loses appeal against sentence
The former senior partner of a Norfolk law firm, jailed for four years for fraud, has failed in his appeal against sentence, with the court saying it was, if anything, “lenient”.
High Court rejects immigration solicitor’s “meritless” strike-off appeal
An immigration solicitor secretly recorded by the BBC advising how to obtain “fraudulent” evidence for a visa application has failed in his appeal against being struck off.
SRA warns solicitors over ‘deepfake’ clients and vendor fraud
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned lawyers who rely on video calls to identify clients of the risks posed by ‘deepfake’ technology and also of rising vendor fraud.
Blog
The new metrics for success in conveyancing
While technology has made much of the conveyancing process faster, there remains a practical limit to how many matters anyone can manage while still keeping standards intact.
The UK legal market is polarising – and the middle is disappearing
Consolidation and the boutique boom are not contradictory. They are the same market stretching apart at both ends – and it changes what your firm is worth, and to whom.
Conveyancing’s consistency problem is about pressure, not skills
When I qualified, a conveyancer had perhaps 10 or 12 plates to keep spinning. Today’s conveyancers have 20 or 30, and almost none of the room for error I had starting out.
Reports
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