Regulation

The Law Society has suffered a £5m loss on a botched internal IT project to go with the £7m loss caused by failed conveyancing portal Veyo, it has emerged. The news came as it announced a 9% fall in the proposed practising certificate fee for 2016-17 to £290 – mainly thanks to the society dipping into its reserves.

A barrister who withdrew from acting for her local authority client at the end of an eight-day planning appeal is to be advised as to her future conduct, but has otherwise avoided sanction at a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

The president of the Supreme Court last week called for a debate on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and for “greater prominence” for ethics in legal training. Lord Neuberger also warned once again of increased potential for ethical conflicts in alternative business structures owned by non-lawyers.

A paralegal who sent abusive text messages to a client has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Ewelina Niemczyk agreed to the sanction after admitting her conduct was unacceptable.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation, after medical records relating to personal injury claims were found in a skip outside a law firm’s former office in St Helens, Merseyside. Separately, evidence has emerged of bodyshops releasing personal data to third-party law firms and CMCs.

A director of collapsed Devon law firm Eastleys who made “blatantly false” statements to third parties has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The tribunal described Matthew Roddan’s behaviour as “intolerable”.

‘Named and shamed’ barrister Tariq Rehman has come top of the latest table of complaints about lawyers published by the Legal Ombudsman. He was subject to more complaints than the combined total recorded for the country’s two largest consumer law firms, Irwin Mitchell and Slater & Gordon.

In the second part of our interview with Legal Services Board chief executive Neil Buckley, he explains why the board is “very hopeful” that the Competition and Markets Authority “will come out with draft proposals that will help move the legal services market on”.

Unregulated providers of legal services are not as much of a problem as many assume and there is simply not the evidence to back a ban on paid-for McKenzie Friends, the chief executive of the Legal Services Board has told Legal Futures in his first interview since taking on the role.

An “old-fashioned solicitor” whose firm “became a mess and spiralled downwards” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. “Even if the respondent’s actions were not pre-mediated when he made the first transfer, by the one hundred and forty seventh transfer they must have been,” it said.