Compliance & Regulation
SRA heading for Carter-Ruck showdown in Supreme Court
The High Court has granted the SRA permission to appeal the Carter-Ruck ruling and issued a leapfrog certificate to take it straight to the Supreme Court.
Questions over “drunk barrister” fail to save convicted man’s appeal
The Court of Appeal has rejected a convicted man’s application for third-party disclosure from the Bar Standards Board over claims that his prosecutor was drunk.
LSB ditches plan to up pressure on regulators over diversity
The Legal Services Board has unexpectedly ditched plans that would have increased pressure on regulators to improve diversity in the profession.
LeO: Unhappy clients turning to AI – but that might not be so bad
AI is acting as “an informal form of pre-complaint ‘triage’” that is more likely to influence consumers not to complain than to complain, according to Legal Ombudsman research.
SRA announces “pause” to compliance officer rule changes
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has bowed to pressure from the profession and announced a “pause” in its implementation of the new compliance officer rules.
Law firm alliance will have chance to seek vote of no confidence in SRA
The newly formed SME & Boutique Law Firm Alliance will have the chance to call for a vote of no confidence in the SRA at next month’s Law Society AGM.
Exclusive: BSB pauses new applications to requalify by foreign lawyers
The Bar Standards Board is pausing work on new applications from foreign lawyers looking to requalify as barristers as it continues to struggle with the number of them.
Legal profession has replaced ethics with ‘not acting illegally’
The legal profession has “tried effectively to outsource its soul to its regulators” by substituting acting ethically with the absence of illegality, a City law grandee has warned.
Firms warned over threshold for client interest payments
Law firms must be careful not to impose policies on client account interest that set too high a de minimis threshold, a senior reporting accountant has warned.
Solicitor jailed for stealing from hundreds of clients struck off
A conveyancing solicitor jailed for 30 months after defrauding a Hereford law firm out of at least £161,000 has now been struck off.
SRA privilege ruling may be problem for solicitors under investigation
This week’s Carter-Ruck ruling could be bad news for some solicitors under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, experts have warned.
Solicitor struck off for dishonesty fails in second bid to return to roll
The SDT has rejected a second application to return to the roll from a solicitor struck off for dishonesty, less than a year after it dismissed his first.
Paralegal called in sick when actually facing Crown Court trial
A paralegal who was convicted of a public order offence and lied to her employer about why she was not in work that day has been banned from the profession.
Mayson: Collapse of PM Law “predictable outcome of outdated regulation”
The collapse of PM Law was the “predictable outcome of a regulatory architecture built for a different market and a different time”, Professor Stephen Mayson has argued.
Law societies oppose SRA’s new litigation funding rules
The national Law Society and Birmingham Law Society have argued against SRA plans for law firms which use litigation funding – but the Legal Services Consumer Panel is a big fan.
Blog
The AI governance gap in law firms and why it matters now
A third of law firms are already using AI tools with no formal policy in place to govern how AI gets used, what data goes into it, or who’s accountable when something goes wrong.
Information isn’t oversight – lessons from the PM Law review
The PM Law review’s real findings perhaps point to a failure mode applying to any organisation sitting on scattered risk information.
AI can do the work but it cannot inherit the lawyer’s duty
What happens when lawyers delegate cognitive work to AI but remain personally responsible for judgements they may no longer have independently reasoned through?
Reports
Associates
