Regulation

A solicitor whose judgement was affected by the fact he was in a personal relationship with his client has been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for misleading a court. The tribunal warned that such relationships are “potentially fraught with difficulties, even if entered into with a good understanding of those difficulties”.

Law firms have been warned not to charge excessive fees for payment protection insurance claims, while claims management companies were told that becoming alternative business structures was not a way to avoid caps on their fees.

The Law Society has failed in its bid to strike out a negligence claim by a law firm that was the victim of a fraud after the details of another firm it had checked on the society’s online ‘Find a Solicitor’ facility turned out to be false.

A trainee solicitor has been handed a suspended jail sentence after being convicted of providing illegal immigration advice and services. The judge said he had set out to deceive vulnerable clients seeking help with immigration applications.

Two solicitors have been jailed for a total of six years and one month for their part in committing a fraud and perverting the course of justice in bringing a £20,000 breach of contract claim against a former employee. One of the giveaways was that the Law Society copyright at the foot of each page was incorrect.

A Sussex solicitor lost in a “fog of confusion” over a failed multi-million pound investment scheme has been fined £50,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, one of the highest individual fines it has handed out. It found that despite being a “very experienced solicitor” and former law lecturer, her “primary failings” had been incompetence.

Solicitors have been warned about what they say in emails and on social media in both their professional and personal lives, in the wake of an increase in reports about offensive and inappropriate posts. Just last week, we reported on a solicitor who was sanctioned for “violent” anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist comments he made on Facebook.

The High Court has rejected a challenge by two solicitors to an intervention into a south London law firm which was accused by a judge last year of making “largely dishonest” claims for unpaid fees. The SRA has now referred them to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to face multiple allegations.

A paralegal who pretended to be a barrister with several people, including a terminal cancer sufferer he tricked out of her life savings, has been sent to jail for eight years. The police described him as “a fantasist and vindictive when challenged”. He also falsely claimed to have a law degree from the University of London.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has banned a series of non-solicitor fee-earners from working in the profession in the wake of one faking a document after missing a court deadline, and two being convicted of fraud. Under section 43 of the Solicitors Act 1974, they cannot be involved in an SRA-regulated firm without its permission.