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The proportion of applications to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal by litigants in person has gone up by 50% in the last 10 years, the Master of the Rolls has said. He said the judiciary was considering “the facilitation of settlement” of claims in the Online Court.

The Legal Services Board has come under unprecedented pressure to reject plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce a centralised Solicitors Qualifying Examination. City lawyers, law lecturers and Welsh speakers have called on the LSB not to approve the application, while MPs asked for the decision to be postponed for six months.

A solicitor who “took advantage” of his position at the law centre where he worked by privately charging immigration and asylum clients ineligible for legal aid has been struck off. He charged clients a total of £8,000 on a private paying basis while working at the Gloucester Law Centre.

A solicitor who took £1m from the legal aid fund by fabricating cases and making hundreds of improper claims, and then abandoned his practice, has been struck off. On the first day of a two-day Legal Aid Agency visit, he said he had a problem with one of his children and had to leave – the investigating officer never saw him again.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s warning about using non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment puts solicitors in a difficult position and may even discourage reporting, it has been claimed.

A fifth of those buying leaseholds do not recall their solicitors giving them key information such as the length of the lease remaining, service charges and ground rent, according to research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. But overall, conveyancing clients were generally happy with the service they received.

A solicitor who bombarded a work colleague with “deeply offensive” and racist messages has been fined £5,000 after a tribunal found that a reduction in the medication he was on led to the misconduct. It did not accept the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s argument that he had a duty to maintain his health and ensure the messages were not sent.

At the present rate, it will be 100 years before the percentage of black and minority ethnic QCs mirrors the general population, an event on improving race equality at the Bar heard last month. One black QC said there were times when he had turned up at court in a suit and was seen as anyone but the lawyer.

There is a “worrying trend” towards potential government interference in decisions over the grant of legal aid that threaten the independence of the profession, a leading solicitor warned parliamentarians this week. She also highlighted the so-called ‘embarrassment clause’ put into criminal contracts by the Legal Aid Agency.

Six former leaders of defunct firm Cobbetts have been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for their actions as the firm was going under. However, the Solicitors Regulation Authority withdrew an allegation that they exhibited “manifest incompetence” in the way they ran the firm.