Regulation

A dual-qualified solicitor and barrister who was struck off after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud the Legal Aid Agency has now been disbarred. He was given a two-year suspended sentence.

The highly contentious Leigh Day disciplinary case has come to an end with the Solicitors Regulation Authority paying the firm £1m in costs after the regulator’s unsuccessful appeal.

The Bar Council may work with the Law Society to influence solicitors and clients as part of a campaign to ensure a fairer allocation of briefs to women barristers.

The High Court has rejected an appeal by a solicitor who “facilitated” immigration claims which were an abuse of process and “effectively ignored” judges’ warnings to change his behaviour.

The Bar Council is still unhappy with the price transparency regime proposed by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), despite the regulator’s decision to limit publication of information about fees to public access work. The revised rules came under fire from… Read More

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.

A solicitor who failed to check whether his clients were politically exposed persons, in the first disciplinary matter to involve infamous offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca, has been fined £45,000.

Chartered legal executives operate on a par with solicitors and it is only “professional snobbery” stopping them from being part of the solution to many current systemic problems.

A solicitor has been fined for calling a would-be client an “asshole”, “crazy” and “a certifiable nutcase” in correspondence with the man, his partner and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

Efforts to encourage lawyers to make more suspicious activity reports are not succeeding, with the number of reports from the legal sector down 12% last year.