Regulation

Partners in a former Stratford-upon-Avon law firm have been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after the finance co-ordinator in the accounts department took nearly £1.7m from client account. He eventually confessed in a resignation letter that said he had “gone above and beyond the remit of my role” by using client money to keep the firm going.

A north-west law firm has been rebuked after paying more than £200,000 to an unauthorised claims management company for personal injury referrals. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been dogged by questions over the effectiveness of its response to the ban on PI referral fees since it became law in 2013.

A sole practitioner who admitted dishonesty misappropriating £100,000 of client money could end up costing the compensation fund over £600,000, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has said. Her motive was funding her business, and she tried to conceal what she was doing by false accounting.

An unqualified fee-earner who stole £569,000 from one of the country’s biggest conveyancing firms, and worked at other firms under different names before being sent to prison, has been banned from working in the profession. Meanwhile, two trainee solicitors have been banned, both for dishonest conduct.

The Bar Standards Board is to consider requiring that chambers have a ‘work allocation officer’ as part of its Women at the Bar equality project, it emerged yesterday. It will also look at whether women returning after maternity leave should not have to pay any contribution from their fees to chambers for a limited time.

There is concern among solicitors that forcing firms to publish their costs will lead to ‘price baiting’, with some firms using artificially low prices to get clients through the door before increasing the costs later. The Solicitors Regulation Authority survey found widespread wariness about the idea of price publication.

Consumers select conveyancing solicitors mainly on recommendation, but clearer online information about price would help them make better choices, research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found. It also showed that 82% of consumers were very or fairly satisfied with the service they received.

A solicitor who took £1m from his client account to keep his firm afloat has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said that once Ian James Douglas had decided to embark on this strategy, the “downward spiral was rapid and devastating”.

The ownership structure of law firms is “completely irrelevant” when assessing risk, a director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority said yesterday. Crispin Passmore also reaffirmed the regulator’s determination to change the approach to the minimum cover limit for professional indemnity insurance.

Lutfur Rahman’s actions in running for re-election as mayor of Tower Hamlets in London were “reprehensible, orchestrated, deliberate and dishonest”, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled in striking him off. It was well known that Mr Rahman was a solicitor and “this would have had a significant detrimental impact on the reputation of the profession”.