Latest news

Lower-than-expected court fees from high-value cases and increased demand in the criminal justice system are behind the Ministry of Justice’s request for £427m extra funding over and above its designated department spending limit for 2015-16, it has emerged.

Ignorance about fees, lack of public awareness and “excessive correspondence” from clients are just some of the challenges faced by direct access barristers, a major report by the Bar Standards Board and Legal Services Board has revealed. However, the “overwhelming consensus” was that direct access work would grow in the next few years.

Paul Baxendale-Walker, a struck-off solicitor who went on to run an adult film company and Loaded magazine, has been fined after being found guilty of impersonating an official from HM Revenue & Customs in dealings with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Lawyers will be worse off if the UK leaves the European Union because of a reduction in access to the single market, the analysis published yesterday by the Treasury has claimed. It said that lawyers have faced more trade barriers in the EU than any other professional services sector

The written advocacy of continental European lawyers makes for “boring” court proceedings, according to the President of the Supreme Court. Lord Neuberger also said that well-paid advocates representing the rich had a responsibility to ensure access to justice for the poor.

The flexible benefits scheme that saw Legal Ombudsman staff effectively paid hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of their salaries in the organisation’s first six years – until the government deemed the payments to be irregular – has been scrapped.

A solicitor who failed to report “serious misconduct” by other members of staff at former Yorkshire firm Legal Development Partners has been fined £2,000. He admitted that he had also allowed his independence to be compromised by allowing “unqualified third parties” to control and influence the firm.

The conveyancers on both sides of a property fraud have been found jointly liable for the £470,000 loss suffered by the buyer. The ruling of His Honour Judge Pelling QC, sitting as a High Court judge, is the first authority on the obligations owed by a seller’s solicitor to a purchaser.

A coalition of leading claimant solicitors, charities and others in the personal injury market have come together to fight the government’s whiplash reforms – and is calling on the 2,700 PI firms in England and Wales to back the cause. It is promising a “properly funded, co-ordinated and directed strategic campaign”.

A training provider is suing the Law Society for “six-figure damages” over its claim that Chancery Lane is acting anti-competitively by requiring law firms to buy its training in order to maintain their Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation.