Latest news

The new president of the Supreme Court yesterday joined what appears to be a growing clamour to reinstate public funding to provide early legal advice. Lady Hale also reiterated her concern about the possible downgrading of the objective in legal regulation to encourage an “independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession”.

The Bar Standards Board is to consult on removing the rule that allows one person to veto their chambers reporting anonymised data on the sexual orientation, religion and belief of all members, in a move it said was supported by LGBT+ members of the Bar.

Shine Lawyers, the personal injury law firm that followed Slater & Gordon into listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, now finds itself on the receiving end of a shareholder class action, just like Slater & Gordon. The A$250m (£149m) action alleges that Shine misled investors in a series of representations it made to the market.

Riverview Law has become the first law firm to offer its trainee solicitors a six-month seat in technology services, having obtained approval from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We also have news from ABSs Co-operative Legal Services, Express Solicitors, Keoghs, gunnercooke, Gateley and Astute Dynamic – with diversification a notable theme.

A solicitor who was suspended indefinitely after failing to pay his firm’s indemnity insurance premiums and later became bankrupt has been allowed to return to the profession by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Imposing conditions to prevent him managing a firm, the SDT said the bankruptcy had wiped out the debt relating to the insurance premiums.

The Legal Services Board has approved a rule change by the Solicitors Regulation Authority which will make it easier for law firms to switch regulators. In a move which is likely to see more firms leave the SRA than join it, the requirement that they must obtain six years of run-off cover before switching to another regulator will be removed.

Conservative MPs yesterday cautioned the government against over-reacting to the abuses in the personal injury market by taking away the right of genuinely injured people to sue. Bob Neill, the chairman of the justice select committee, also warned the SRA that it needed to focus more on rogue PI solicitors than arguments with the Law Society over independent regulation.

A drastic reduction in the role of the Inns of Court in the training of barristers – to the point where barristers would not have to be members of one – and an end to the required period of 12 months for pupillages are on the table as the Bar Standards Board takes the next step in its Future Bar Training initiative.

An assistant solicitor and his firm have been handed hefty fines after the failure of a Chinese wall between two clients, a woman and her abusive husband, led to the man being told her new address against her specific instructions.

A solicitor who failed to ask for either personal or professional references before recruiting a conveyancer who went on to carry out a series of frauds, has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Among the documents forged by the fraudster was a practising certificate from the previous year.