Other lawyers

The clock on a possible ban on referral fees from lawyers to estate agents has started running after new guidance on disclosure was published by National Trading Standards.

A man who admitted acting for 200 clients who wrongly believed he was qualified to give them immigration law advice is one of three such offenders to be sentenced recently.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives has become the first approved legal regulator to announce its intention to give its regulatory body complete structural independence.

The position of the smaller legal regulators has been thrust into the spotlight, with the chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel suggesting that one may be at risk of losing its right to regulate.

The Legal Services Board is not putting enough pressure on the frontline regulators to publish details of lawyers’ disciplinary records on their online registers, it has been claimed.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is “not sufficiently transparent” in explaining its decisions at board level, the Legal Services Board has said, while ticking off other regulators too.

The profession has a long way to go to meet the new price and service transparency requirements, with just 28% of firms compliant or close to compliant, our research has found.

A quarter of consumers believe their lawyer was “not transparent” on conveyancing fees, new research has shown on the day new price and service transparency rules come into force.

New rules which clearly limit the influence the Law Society can have on the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and the Bar Council on the Bar Standards Board, have been published.

The frontline regulators are making “very good progress” in improving price transparency, the Legal Services Board has said – but its consumer panel was far less impressed.