Latest news

The partner at City giant DLA Piper who hit the headlines in 2014 for lewd e-mail exchanges with Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has been referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The first academic study of compliance officers for legal practice has found a “tendency” not to report regulatory failures to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. There was also evidence of COLPs at ABSs with mainly non-lawyer management struggling to get across the importance of following the rules.

NAHL Group – the business that owns the National Accident Helpline – has accelerated its march into conveyancing with the launch of a legal comparison site. The Solicitor Finder is initially focused on the residential property sector but will be expanded into other sectors in due course.

The Legal Services Board is set to instruct the frontline regulators like the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board to get tough with lawyers who do not handle client complaints properly. Draft guidance published for consultation yesterday said that they could stage “supervisory interventions” into poorly performing firms.

A UK-based litigation funder is to back a shareholder class action against Slater & Gordon as its share price continues to tank following Monday’s announcement of huge losses. Having started the week at 83c, the embattled firm saw its shares finish trading on the Australian Stock Exchange today at just 26c, their lowest ever point.

A solicitor has been convicted of helping launder money on behalf of a man who claimed to be Pope Francis’s banker as part of a massive scam. Buddika Kadurugamuwa will be sentenced later this week after being found guilty of one count of transferring criminal property.

A sole practitioner who overcharged by 500% for private client work has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The SDT also found that Premji Naran Patel was “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by improperly moving money between different client accounts.

Online divorce and probate are set to be delivered under the courts modernisation programme by early 2017, the president of the Family Division has said. Sir James Munby also called on family barristers to adopt new working practices, including direct access, unbundling and fixed fees.

The UK is in the sights of a Canadian company that has developed an app aimed at simplifying the divorce process for self-represented couples, including automated completion of divorce application forms and the documents needed to make a separation agreement.

The London Litigation Solicitors Association and the Law Society are pushing for a lower £10,000 limit for cases in the Online Court. In his interim report, Lord Justice Briggs proposed a limit of £25,000. The LSLA said that there should be fixed or capped costs for litigation between £10,000 and £25,000.