Compliance & Regulation
Mayson: Legal regulation failing to prevent consumer harm
Legal regulation is not protecting consumers from harm – both in their inability to access services and when things go wrong – meaning structural reform is more urgent than ever.
Personal injury ABS bosses fined for undeclared ATE commissions
Two managers of a collapsed personal injury law firm have each been fined £18,000 for failing to declare commissions earned by a connected business which provided clients with ATE insurance.
Sophie Khan to face 11 charges at disciplinary tribunal
Details of the disciplinary case the Solicitors Regulation Authority will make against Sophie Khan – who was jailed for contempt after failing to give it her firm’s papers – were published yesterday.
Solicitor struck off for lying about existence of key evidence
A solicitor specialising in actions against the police who failed to disclose the existence of a warrant to counsel and the court has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
Barrister with council tax conviction fails in disbarment appeal
The High Court has rejected an appeal from a barrister disbarred after a council tax conviction and submission of dishonest evidence to a Crown Court.
Lack of accountability “damages authority” of in-house lawyers
The decision by the Financial Conduct Authority to exclude in-house lawyers from its senior managers and certification regime has damaged the authority they have in their organisations.
LSB calls for “urgency” in improving consumer information
The Legal Services Board has said it expects to see “a sense of pace and urgency” from regulators in improving the flow of information to consumers to help them choose a lawyer.
The SIF lives on – SRA gives fund yet another stay of execution
The Solicitors Indemnity Fund – which was first due to close in 2017 – has been given another stay of execution and will now go on to September 2023, a year later than the SRA had planned.
SDT fines veteran solicitor for multiple accounts rules breaches
A veteran solicitor whose carelessness and ignorance of the accounts rules led to multiple breaches has been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
SRA decides against retrial of junior solicitor who left case on train
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has ended proceedings against the junior solicitor initially struck off after she left confidential documents on a train.
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.
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