Regulation

A veteran solicitor who was tricked by an email fraud to pay out £290,000 in proceeds from a conveyancing transaction to a third party has been fined £10,000.

A solicitor has begun a petition urging the Solicitors Regulation Authority to allow firms to make unsolicited approaches to consumers online, saying the blanket ban goes too far.

There was no protection for staff under the TUPE after the sole owner of a law firm was made bankrupt and the practice taken over, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled.

There is “no conclusive evidence” to show that consumers who use unregulated services obtain worse outcomes than those using regulated firms, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said.

A QC’s opinion was dishonestly altered to reassure a third party charged with marketing an investment scheme that eventually collapsed, the High Court has found.

Five solicitors, a solicitor apprentice and a legal assistant who worked at one of the largest law firms to be shut down by the SRA have been awarded more than £37,000 by an employment tribunal.

Law firms should advertise unbundled services or offer them directly to clients, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said, highlighting the “untapped potential” to support consumers in accessing advice.

A shortage of money and negative perceptions can still be deterrents to working class barristers  entering the profession, a seminar on diversity in the legal profession was told last week.

A supervising judge has criticised counsel who withdrew on the eve of an important consequentials hearing for not specifying the concerns they had raised about the conduct of the trial judge.

City law firm Clyde & Co has been given permission to pay into court $325m it is holding in an escrow account, after an American judge removed the risk of it being prosecuted for doing so.