Regulation

The first chambers to use a recruitment system which provides ‘contextual’ information to improve diversity is not “virtue signalling”, the head of its pupillage committee has said.

A barrister who failed to tell a client that he was withdrawing from their case before the Court of Appeal has effectively been suspended for three years. He did not tell his chambers either.

A law firm that addressed a transgender woman by her birth name has been ordered to pay compensation by the Legal Ombudsman.

A solicitor who was trying to close files ahead of his retirement has agreed to remove himself from the roll after he wrote in a false attestation clause for an executors’ oath.

A partner at national firm TLT has accepted a rebuke from the SRA after he was convicted of drink driving, while a conveyancing clerk jailed for mortgage fraud has been banned from the profession.

The Legal Services Board has given both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board a clean bill of health in the way they enforce their rules.

Three more unregulated businesses have been given the green light to offer unreserved legal services to the public through practising solicitors, in the new tranche of waivers issued by the regulator.

Two solicitors fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal last summer have now been permanently disqualified as trustees by the Charity Commission in an unrelated matter.

A barrister jailed for 20 years after pleading guilty to 37 charges relating to child sexual abuse has been disbarred. John Guess, called in 2000, had been a lawyer for the Welsh government.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s new rulebook will come into force some six months later than originally expected. Meanwhile, it has unveiled a new push to check firms’ anti-money laundering compliance.