Latest news

A solicitor who hid a wasted costs order against his firm by faking a fee invoice on another matter so as to create a surplus he used to pay it, has been struck off. He said he had been too embarrassed to admit the £1,500 wasted costs order to his managers.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has asked the Competition and Markets Authority for advice on how it could stimulate more use of comparison websites in the legal market, saying there was consumer demand for more of such tools to help consumers choose lawyers.

QualitySolicitors is set to launch a new expansion drive in a bid to double the number of offices in the network to 200 as it looks to capitalise on its national coverage. It recently secured one national B2B contract with a well-known name and is also working on improving the other benefits firms receive.

The Society of Will Writers has launched a blunt campaign to encourage people to make a will, entitled ‘No will equals poo’. The visual featuring the poo emoji is accompanied by a short YouTube video that asks: “Do you want to be remembered only for the mess you leave behind?”

Barrister Tariq Rehman, still the only lawyer to be ‘named and shamed’ by the Legal Ombudsman for his complaints record, has been disbarred after the third separate disciplinary tribunal in less than a month. He had previously been suspended and barred from accepting public access work.

A Bolton law firm that has been under fire from politicians, local media and other solicitors for receiving a business grant from its local council to help with the renovation of new offices has insisted that it did nothing wrong. It also claimed to be the victim of a “smear campaign” by other solicitors.

A solicitor whose law firm partner has gone to jail for four years for mortgage fraud has lost her bid to have the £4.65m losses being sought from her covered by the firm’s professional indemnity insurer, even though she was not alleged to have had any personal involvement in the frauds.

A notarial firm based in Norwich has become the first to be regulated as an alternative business structure by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The move was triggered by the decision to appoint its first non-notary employees earlier this year.

Claimant personal injury lawyers have been left questioning why the government was prepared to announced in yesterday’s Autumn Statement that it is to ban cold-calling in relation to pensions, but not to stop it in personal injury – and whether Chancellor Philip Hammond let slip that the whiplash reforms are already a done deal.

Divorce pioneers Amicable Apps have launched a ground-breaking advice service to complement the launch of the final version of their app. Clients who want more help in handling their divorce than the app can provide are directed to ‘divorce coaches’, who could be non-practising lawyers but may have no legal training at all.