Regulation

Fears that the rewritten SRA Handbook might not continue the ban on law firms cold-calling potential personal injury clients have been allayed by the regulator. Meanwhile, the Law Society has released an opinion poll showing public opposition to the SRA’s plan to allow solicitors to practise from unregulated businesses.

The Federation of Small Businesses has recommended that legal services regulators be given sweeping powers to force providers to make public wide-ranging information on pricing and client feedback. The not-for-profit organisation, which lobbies for the interests of SMEs, also advised that ‘unmet need’ among small businesses is addressed by boosting the information available on what problems might have legal remedies.

London set 6 Pump Court has become the first major chambers to set up a Bar Standards Board-regulated entity. However, head of chambers Stephen Hockman QC – a former chairman of the Bar Council – was optimistic about the durability of the traditional chambers model.

The changing legal market means that anybody offering legal services – including unregulated providers – should have to offer some kind of access to the Legal Ombudsman, the chief ombudsman has said. Kathryn Stone said this would be “a much more coherent way for us to provide our service”.

The Law Society has hit back at the Association of British Insurers for claiming that solicitors are involved in insurance fraud. Separately, APIL has expressed concern that the rule which bans solicitors from cold-calling members of the public could be dropped as part of the SRA’s Handbook review.

A well-known Gloucestershire law firm has accepted that it did not act in the best interests of lender clients due to its involvement in stamp duty land tax avoidance schemes. In addition to its conveyancing charges – which totalled £102,000 for 65 transactions – the firm billed £28,000 for facilitating the schemes.

A solicitor has escaped being struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after admitting dishonestly altering the date on a witness statement to make it look like it met a court-ordered deadline. The tribunal held there were exceptional circumstances that meant striking-off would be disproportionate.

Claims on the Solicitors Compensation Fund and the number of interventions into law firms are both falling as the impact of the recession finally begins to fade, and so it is now deliberately running at a deficit to reduce the level of reserves, it was reported yesterday.

The uncertainty that has followed the vote for Britain’s exit from the European Union should not slow down reforms in the legal services market, Paul Philip, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s chief executive, has warned.

A solicitor who fraudulently claimed £37,000 in income tax repayments has been handed a suspended prison sentence and told she was “wholly unsuitable to be a solicitor”. She over-claimed tax repayments. She did this by inflating expenses, including staff costs and refunds relating to clients’ divorce fees.