Regulation

The Legal Services Board has given the frontline regulators largely positive reviews of their performance, but warned the Solicitors Regulation Authority that it will be monitoring the impact of its controversial decision to end public and press access to board meetings

Leading travel company TUI says its efforts to raise awareness of the growth in holiday sickness claims is starting to pay off, with one law firm dropping nearly 2,000 cases it was bringing. It comes as ABTA has stepped up its campaign over the issue, calling for the introduction of fixed costs for such claims.

A law firm referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) by the Court of Appeal earlier this year has been shut down by the regulator. Neumans, a City firm specialising in criminal law, had a further office in Manchester, and, according to the Law Society website, employed 20 solicitors before it was shut yesterday.

The former clients of a solicitor whose dishonesty left them in what a High Court judge described as a ‘Kafkaesque’ situation that wrongly led to their bankruptcy, have seemingly reached the end of the road in seeking legal restitution.

A barrister who continued to offer immigration law advice after being disbarred has been jailed and branded a “charlatan” by the sentencing judge for taking advantage of “vulnerable and often desperate people”.

Barristers who are cleared of misconduct by a disciplinary tribunal can still be sanctioned for breaching the BSB Handbook, under new changes to the rules approved by the Legal Services Board. The Bar Standards Board said the changes aimed to fill a “gap” in its disciplinary powers.

Legal regulators have responded cautiously to the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations on price transparency, pledging to pilot regulatory requirements and test their effects on the lawyers and firms they regulate. They promised to implement controversial measures to encourage lawyers to publish prices if possible.

A solicitor who deliberately broke professional rules by releasing confidential client files so as to help convict a murderer has agreed to leave the law. He signed up to a regulatory settlement agreement with the Solicitors Regulation Authority to avoid a likely strike-off by a disciplinary tribunal.

The growth of ‘professional’ McKenzie Friends risks the boundaries between regulated and non-regulated representatives “becoming blurred”, a circuit judge has warned, as she upheld a decision to exclude from a family case a man chosen by one of the parties to be their McKenzie Friend. She also criticised him for describing his role as ‘quasi-solicitorial’.

The focus on Brexit should not hold back regulatory reform in the legal sector, leading market observer Professor Stephen Mayson has urged, countering calls by the Law Society for the government to put it aside to focus on leaving the EU.