Compliance & Regulation

The first solicitors to qualify via the Solicitors Qualifying Examination will enter practice next month after 77% of candidates passed the second set of assessments.

The home secretary has made clear that she wants to see lawyers and other ‘enablers’ of kleptocrats jailed for their involvement with “dirty money”.

Lawyers have reacted with scepticism at the suggestion that Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab wants to “extend” higher rights of audience to more criminal defence solicitors.

There is little evidence of bullying, discrimination and harassment on Bar training courses, students have reported as part of research into equality and diversity at the vocational stage of training.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to issue guidance on when litigators are allowed to label letters as ‘private and confidential’ and/or ‘without prejudice’.

The “seismic shift” in time limits to complain to the Legal Ombudsman will require close monitoring to ensure that consumers do not lose out.

Californian legislators have blocked efforts by the State Bar to consider non-lawyer ownership of law firms, in the latest battle over alternative business structures in the US.

The SRA is planning huge increases in the fines it can impose for misconduct by wealthy solicitors – from the current £50,000 to £805,000 – while reducing them for lower earners.

A solicitor who called himself a notary when he was not and ‘apostilled’ documents despite not being allowed to has been rebuked after he said he was unaware of the restrictions.

A solicitor was manifestly incompetent in failing to progress probate matters for as long as a decade, but his misconduct did not amount to a lack of integrity, a tribunal has ruled.