Private Client

An investor-backed search fund has acquired a conveyancing and private client law firm as the start of a ‘buy and build’ strategy aimed particularly at SME practices with succession issues.

A junior solicitor who told clients, colleagues and others that she had submitted applications for grants of probate when she had not, has been struck off.

The boss of an unregulated probate business has been sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of court after failing to reveal the whereabouts of £432,000 of an estate’s money.

The partner of a deceased solicitor has received a suspended sentence for contempt of court after breaching injunctions designed to stop her online harassment of his executors.

Solicitors’ firms specialising in conveyancing and probate should know there is an alternative to the SRA, the chief executive of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers has said.

Some 36% wills drafted last year contained at least one trust, highlighting the importance of private client lawyers having expertise in trusts, according to a large-scale study.

The legal services market will grow across all practice areas in 2026 for the first time since Covid, researchers have predicte, while a growing private equity presence is “a continuing theme”.

The government has no plans to review the regulation of estate planning and trust-selling practices in the wake of the collapse of Anglo-Scottish law firm McClure, a justice minister has said.

An established estate planning firm has entered regulation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and bought a family law practice to expand the services it offers.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has decided against striking off a junior solicitor who deleted part of a colleague’s handover note to cover up his failure to do what it said.