Compliance & Regulation
High Court: Law firm was not operating collective investment scheme
A law firm which did the conveyancing work on two failed off-plan housing developments was not operating an unregulated collective investment scheme, the High Court has ruled.
Solicitor who lied to client, SRA and insurers struck off
A solicitor who lied to her client about the progress of her case and then to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about it, and later to professional indemnity insurers, has been struck off.
Solicitor who retrospectively witnessed signatures is fined £20,000
A solicitor who ‘witnessed’ the signatures of a client’s father that were already on property documents, without checking their authenticity, has been fined £20,000.
“Inept” solicitor transferred money in breach of court order
A “seriously inept” solicitor who transferred money to another law firm’s client account, in breach of a court order that his firm should hold it, has been fined £8,000.
Fines for partners who charged clients for indemnity insurance
Three partners have been fined for charging conveyancing clients for the firm’s indemnity insurance, as well as “variable sums” for filling out a simple standard form.
Solicitor allowed use of client account as £4.6m banking facility
A solicitor who let his firm’s client account be used as a banking facility for payments from clients’ investors totalling over £4.6m has been fined £15,000.
Another SRA prosecution fails but regulator avoids costs order
The Solicitors Regulation Authority was justified in prosecuting two law firm partners even though all of the allegations were dismissed, a tribunal has ruled.
Email attachments are not privileged just because message is
The Supreme Court has refused to interfere in a ruling that legal professional privilege which covers an email does not extend to any attachments.
Solicitor who misled tribunals on Ugandan law is struck off
A solicitor who misled the First-tier and Upper Tribunals in immigration cases about anti-gay legislation in Uganda has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
Veteran solicitor practised without insurance
A sole practitioner in his 70s has been struck off after practising for over six months without professional indemnity insurance, despite telling others he had cover.
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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