Regulation

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to press ahead with allowing practising solicitors to deliver unreserved services to the public from unregulated organisations, as part of a radical shake-up of the way it oversees the profession. At its heart are a seven-page code of conduct for solicitors and six-page code for firms.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has dropped a new definition of ‘client money’ which would have excluded fees and disbursements in response to the concerns of practitioners, but is otherwise moving ahead with a huge rewrite of the accounts rules that reduces them from 41 pages to just seven, and approves the use of third-party managed accounts.

The case for excluding paid McKenzie Friends from the courts “has not yet been made out”, research for the Bar Council has concluded. The research found that most of the work carried out by paid McKenzie Friends was delivered outside court, and advocacy was merely “the tip of the iceberg”.

Friday’s ruling of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to clear Leigh Day and three of its lawyers in the longest and most expensive prosecution ever has brought into the spotlight questions about the burden of proof in disciplinary proceedings and the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s push for greater internal fining powers, it has been suggested.

A former claims company manager has been fined for leading a team involved in ‘blagging’ calls to illegally obtain personal data from insurance companies that they could sell on to personal injury law firms. Meanwhile, there have been more raids as part of an investigation into nuisance calls linked to the theft of data from car repair centres.

The longest and most expensive case brought in the history of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ended with high-profile claimant lawyer Martyn Day, two of his colleagues and his firm Leigh Day fully exonerated. A former head of British forces in Iraq said the SRA should appeal.

Two partners who acted both for former clients of a law firm shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and for one of that firm’s solicitors have been fined by a disciplinary tribunal. However, they had to accept higher fines than had been agreed with the regulator to satisfy the tribunal’s view of the seriousness of their misconduct.

Claimant personal injury lawyers yesterday urged their colleagues to report law firms bringing fake holiday sickness claims after it emerged that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating around 15 reports of potential misconduct.

Two partners at a high street firm have each been fined £35,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for multiple accounts rule breaches – very much at the higher end of the financial penalties it usually hands out. One was also found to have breached the money laundering regulations and both failed to act with integrity.

The senior partner of a south London law firm has been sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for unprofessional and “completely unacceptable” correspondence with a litigant in person, in which he accused her of lying, disgraceful behaviour and arguing with a judge “like a fisherwoman”.