Compliance & Regulation

The former finance director of a law firm has been banned from the law after using “residual client monies” kept in a separate deposit account to pay the firm’s VAT and staff salaries.

The Legal Services Board has given itself more time to decide on whether to approve a new breed of law firm created by CILEx Regulation and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

An alternative business structure has been fined £18,000 for working with a struck-off solicitor without the approval of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A solicitor who told the Solicitors Regulation Authority that his firm’s client files were “locked in a safe in Pakistan”, and used client money to pay a VAT bill, has been struck off.

The cost of practising as a solicitor is to fall by 6.7% in the coming year, although it may have to rise in future once the Law Society sets a new reserves policy.

The director of a law firm who admitted taking money from two different litigation funders for the same cases in an attempt to keep it operating “at all costs” has been struck off.

The solicitor for the family of Shamima Begum was at the centre of a social media storm yesterday over a tweet about the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan.

Lawyers compelled by the CPR or court order to reveal the contents or existence of suspicious activity reports must contact the National Crime Agency at the “first opportunity”, the Home Office has said.

Two of the smaller legal regulators are having to self-finance their compensation funds after their insurer stopped providing cover, reducing the potential payouts as a result.

A senior solicitor convicted more than six years ago of raping a teenager is finally facing the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, it emerged yesterday.