Compliance & Regulation

A “high-flying” barrister partner at a City law firm who fabricated a court order was unable to cope with her workload but this did not excuse her misconduct, a Bar tribunal has found.

A male barrister has been reprimanded for describing his opponent’s instructing lawyer as a “hysterical woman” and female lawyers more generally as intemperate.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned law firms that imposing “wholly unreasonable workloads or targets” on staff could result in disciplinary action.

The chair of the Bar Council has warned the Legal Services Board that it risks infringing the Legal Services Act if it demands that regulators impose new competence regimes without sufficient evidence.

The pass rate of 53% achieved by the first group of candidates to sit part one of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam is viewed as “low” by students, an SQE training provider has said.

A solicitor who did not pay outstanding disbursements for seven years, using them instead to prop up his personal injury firm, has been struck off.

The pandemic has had more of an impact on incomes at the lower-earning end of the Bar than among the big billers, according to new research by the Bar Standards Board.

The funder of a law firm that went bust owing it £1.6m has failed in an attempt to recover the money from the practice’s professional indemnity insurer.

A well-known law firm acted for a client without receiving signed authority from him, having relied on his aunt to provide identification documents, it has emerged.

The biennial snapshot of the solicitors’ profession shows the “real challenges” for large firms in making progress towards diversity, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said.