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The personal injury sector has been a “huge success story”, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s executive director of strategic planning and performance has said, but the regulator wants to weed out the bad conduct that exists from claimant and defendant lawyers alike.

A solicitor who made multiple complaints against two barristers who acted for the claimant in litigation in which he was a defendant, has failed in an application to judicially review the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) decision to dismiss the complaints.

Leading investor James Caan has sold his stake in Staffordshire-based law firm Knights Professional Services, Legal Futures can reveal. Mr Caan invested in Knights in 2012, since when the firm has grown its turnover from £8m to £40m and added complementary services to its core legal offering.

An experienced criminal lawyer has been suspended for five years by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after twice being fined for previous accounts rule breaches. The tribunal said the misconduct was due to the solicitor “placing his head in the sand and due to his ineptitude and unacceptable practice”.

Solicitors could “come under pressure to compromise their professional obligations” if they are allowed to operate from unregulated firms where they are outnumbered, according to the author of the first academic study of compliance officers for legal practice.

A barrister is to be reprimanded by the head of his circuit after turning up to court under the influence of alcohol and then leaving before a hearing had finished. Meanwhile, a separate tribunal has disbarred a barrister who was convicted of evading rail fares in and out of Marylebone Station in London.

The time taken by the Legal Ombudsman to resolve cases increased over the summer, new figures have shown. The proportion of cases resolved within 90 days fell from 50% in June this year to 47% in July – against a target of 60%. This was caused by a “bulge” in cases being assessed.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel and the Legal Ombudsman are the latest organisations to come out against the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposal that practising solicitors be allowed to handle unreserved legal work for the public from unregulated firms.

The personal injury reforms (PI) first announced 10 months ago are still coming, despite the Brexit hiatus – so claimant lawyers have to be prepared, they were told at last week’s PI Futures conference in Liverpool. The default assumption had to be that change would happen.

The Legal Services Board has reacted angrily to a draft report from the International Bar Association which said the oversight regulator was subject to “a degree of government control”, because “the LSB is funded by the Ministry of Justice, and all its members are appointed by the Lord Chancellor”.