Regulation

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.

Some conveyancing solicitors have become “too close to developers” and do not put their clients’ interests first, MPs claimed today. They suggested solicitors should part-fund compensation for mis-sold leases.

A senior male barrister found to have engaged in “unwanted sexual conduct” towards a woman has been reprimanded and fined £3,000 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

A man who ran a ‘litigation firm’ and sold its expertise as coming from qualified legal advisers – even though it did not – has been held to the same standards as actual lawyers in a negligence claim.

Law Society guidance on the use of non-disclosure agreements demonstrates an absence of “ethical leadership” and shows why the profession cannot be allowed to sort such issues on its own.

A solicitor who told a client to pay his firm’s fees into his personal bank account has been struck off. A tribunal did not believe his claim that he had done so mistakenly due to “considerable fatigue”.

An Irish solicitor who acted in negligence proceedings against a law firm in England without the right to practise here has been rebuked and fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Nearly half of legal regulators do not undertake enough supervision of anti-money laundering (AML) efforts, according to the organisation set up to scrutinise them.

A law firm that specialised in mis-sold PPI cases has been fined a record £125,000 for a raft of rule breaches, including sending millions of misleading and unsolicited marketing letters.

A solicitor whose conduct fell “significantly below the standards of probity expected of a company director”, particularly given his legal experience, has been banned from acting as a director.