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The ministerial line-up at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been completed with the appointment of a solicitor and non-lawyer as parliamentary under-secretaries. Jonathan Djanogly, until last year a partner of City law firm SJ Berwin, has been joined by one-time soldier Crispin Blunt as the MoJ’s junior ministers.

Legal process outsourcing reached a new level today after City firm CMS Cameron McKenna signed a 10-year, £583 million deal with Integreon for its “middle office” services, which it claims is the largest ever deal in the legal market and has received the endorsement of Professor Richard Susskind.

The Financial Services and Markets Tribunal has upheld a Financial Services Authority (FSA) decision permanently banning a solicitor from working in any capacity in financial services and fining him and the FSA-regulated law firm of which he is senior partner, £400,000.

There has been a sharp increase in the numbers of law firms closed and solicitors struck off, Legal Futures has discovered. Figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority show it intervened in 31% more firms in the year to 31 March 2010, while there was a 58% jump in strike-offs by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Anna Buttimore, administrator of lawyers’ support charity LawCare, considers the stresses that finding yourself in an ethical dilemma – such as blowing the whistle on possible wrongdoing at your firm – can cause and where to seek help.

This week’s Question of Ethics from the Solicitors Regulation Authority looks at whether there are circumstances in which you can decline to comply with your client’s instructions.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will be able to formally rebuke solicitors and fine them up to £2,000 from next month, it has been confirmed. However, the potential conflict between the civil standard of proof that will be applied in such cases and the criminal standard used by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal – which will hear appeals against SRA decisions – has not yet been resolved and is likely to require further work.

The Law Society is offering staff at its Legal Complaints Service (LCS) financial incentives to join the new Legal Ombudsman service, Legal Futures can reveal. The Society has pledged a year’s worth of “bridging payments” to those who move over, which will go some of the way to making up the difference between their current salary and the lower wage the ombudsman is offering.

This week’s Question of Ethics looks at what a solicitor should do with a request to withhold a beneficiary’s legacy due to the likelihood that he will spend it all on drink, raising the issue of using client account as a banking facility.

A row is brewing between the Law Society and Legal Services Board over the wind-down of the Legal Complaints Service, Legal Futures can reveal. Law Society chief executive Des Hudson has told us that the LSB’s insistence that the LCS’s current performance targets stay in place as it heads towards closure, despite dwindling staff, is “unthoughtful and an error of judgement”.